Sizzling Prospect Shells More Than Just Batters By John Kocsis Jr.
There’s a gentle popping and bubbling berthing in front of a lanky teenager. He just placed dough wrapped around a roller into a pot of boiling oil. After about a minute, he’ll lift the shell out and stuff it with a blend of sweet ricotta cheese and heavy cream, along with some sugar and chocolate chips.
That young man is first-round pick Frank Mozzicato. The Kansas City
Royals selected the southpaw seventh overall in the 2021 draft out of East Catholic High School in Manchester, Connecticut. When the Royals selected Mozzicato July 11, 2021, they made him the highest-drafted Connecticut player since Bobby Valentine was picked fifth overall by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1968. Of course, that was 35 years before our pitcher was born. The lefty was a dark horse in the 2021 draft class. No one would have predicted him climbing to where he did prior to the 2021 campaign, but his work speaks for itself. He spun four consecutive no-hitters to put himself on the map and draw the attention of scouts. Once they saw that, they could see Mozzicato’s low-90s fastball at 17-years-old and his plus curveball out of his left hand and they were intrigued. All-in-all, a year after the world shut down for a year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a Connecticut teenager led his team to a State Championship with an unbelievable 9-0 record, including 135 punchouts in 55.2 innings of work and an unfathomable 0.16 ERA. If that weren’t zany enough, he finished out his high school career with 49.2 consecutive scoreless innings, completing the stretch in electric fashion. In a 7-0 victory over the second-seeded Northwestern Highlanders, Mozzicato pitched a one-hitter where he wrung up 17 batters to lead East Catholic to its fifth title in program history. Before Frank took Connecticut by storm in 2021, people knew the Mozzicato name for a much different reason in the Constitution State. They know it for some of the best baked goods available in the northeast. Mozzicato’s Pastry Shop first opened up in Hartford, Connecticut in 1973, five years after Gino Mozzicato immigrated to the US from Italy. Gino is Frank’s grandfather’s cousin. According to the family’s website, mozzicatobakery. com, it didn’t take long for the Mom and Pop shop to expand, as they bought DePasquale Bakery in 1975 to become the brand they are today, The Mozzicato de Pasquale Bakery & Pastry Shop, carrying along Connecticut cooking traditions that began in 1908. Since, the family has expanded to five
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker