DENVER, CO - JUNE 2: Loveland pitcher Alec Hansen poses for a portrait during the Colorado High School Baseball All-Star Game at Coors field. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

DENVER, CO – JUNE 2: Loveland pitcher Alec Hansen poses for a portrait during the Colorado High School Baseball All-Star Game at Coors field. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

He flirts with the mid-90s like an elderly man with gumption.

Flame-throwing schoolboy Alec Hansen has hit 96 miles per hour on occasion, and so, the radar put him on the radar. The Loveland High School senior is the No. 136-ranked player in the Major League Baseball draft, according to Baseball America, meaning the Oklahoma-bound pitcher could get drafted Thursday (rounds 1-2) or more likely Friday (rounds 3-10).

What’s crazy is that Alec Hansen never thought he’d be Alec Hansen.

“It’s happened so fast, it’s kind of surreal,” the right-handed Hansen said. “Last year, none of this was in the picture. I never thought any of this would be happening.”

This is the fun of finding prospects, the unpredictability and mystics that grow a bean-pole into Randy Johnson within a matter of months. Sure, the 6-foot-7 Hansen was always a reliable pitcher, but last summer, pitching for the Colorado Slammers (based in Lakewood), everything began clicking. Fastballs turned into whoa-balls.

Read the entire story at the Denver Post