The College Connection: Roommates Reunite in Myrtle Beach
by Sam Weiderhaft
<p>Teammates Adam Laskey and Matt Mervis salute the flag during the national anthem</p>
It’s the top of the fourth inning at Pelicans Ballpark on a partly cloudy, warm summer day in the middle of June. The Pelicans took on the Charleston RiverDogs for the second game of the series after dropping the opener a night prior.
Throwing his warmup pitches on the mound just before the inning starts was a lefty from New Jersey, Adam Laskey. When he looked up after beginning his windup, he saw Pelicans' first baseman Matt Mervis skipping ground balls through the grass as he got his infielders ready for action.
Laskey fired his final warmup pitch, and RiverDogs leadoff batter Nick Schnell approached the plate to start the inning. He worked his way to a 2-2 count, with Laskey holding control. On the next pitch, Schnell chopped a ground ball over to first, and Mervis tracked it down after two hops. As Mervis fielded the ball, Laskey raced over to the first base bag to cover. With Schnell turning on the jets, Laskey received an underhand toss from Mervis and just beat him to the bag by about a step to record the first out of the inning. A soft applause rose from the fans, and you can probably count the number of hands clapping in the stadium following the 3-1 putout.
As Laskey stepped back to the mound, he flashed a smile back to Mervis. That simple play, a ground ball in the top of the fourth inning in one of 120 games this season, was years in the making.
<p>Matt Mervis awaits the play wth the Duke Blue Devils</p>
<p>Adam Laskey throws a pitch for the Duke Blue Devils</p>
<p>Adam Laskey pitching for the Duke Blue Devils</p>
Following that season, the roles reversed. While he followed Mervis’ commitment to Duke, Laskey was the first one to test the waters of professional baseball while Mervis stayed in school. With 119 career strikeouts and a career record of 11-9 through three seasons, Laskey turned his statistics to the 2019 MLB Draft and waited to have his name called. His time would come in the 19th round as the Chicago Cubs took him 582nd overall.
“I was happy and congratulated him,” Mervis said. “Obviously that’s the goal, you go to college for three years and want to get out.”
But Laskey wouldn’t be gone from the Durham, North Carolina, campus for long. He returned in the fall of 2019 after being drafted to rehab from his injury and finish his degree. As the 2020 season loomed in the distance, Mervis prepared for his last season of collegiate baseball before he hoped to turn professional, just like his roommate.
“I kept up with that 2020 team a lot,” Laskey said. “Me and Matt talked almost every day.”
As Laskey rehabbed, Mervis was selected to be a team captain for the 2020 Blue Devils. Before the season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mervis would grab two wins on the mound and hit .304 with a trio of home runs. With Major League Baseball bringing in a slew of changes for the 2020 season, the Draft was cut back from 40 rounds down to just five.
With the downsizing, Mervis went undrafted and instead had to seek out free agent opportunities within the major league organizations. As he marked off his Excel spreadsheet with all his wants and needs from big-league clubs, one team stuck out: the Chicago Cubs. Just as Laskey had asked for advice from Mervis about Duke, Mervis turned around and did the same with his best friend.
“I asked him a bunch of questions because he knew the pitching side,” Mervis said. “I asked him about strength and conditioning, and he had a lot of good answers for me.”
Laskey added, “I didn’t want to be a bad influence, but I thought it would be awesome if he signed here.”
The Cubs came calling. Mervis officially signed as an undrafted free agent with Chicago on June 26, 2020. He immediately raced to let his Duke teammates know, including Laskey.
“He was pumped up,” Mervis said.
Laskey explained, “Once it happened, we had a lot of people reach out to us. Once we found out he was coming, I knew we had to be roommates for spring training.”
<p>Matt Mervis swings at a pitch while playing for the Duke Blue Devils</p>
The boys were playing for the same organization just as they had done since their sophomore year of high school. But there are four different teams in the Cubs’ organization plus the instructional leagues in Arizona; the chances of them once again being teammates seemed small, until spring training started.
“We were practicing in the same group during spring training, so we kind of had a feeling that we’d be on the same team again,” Laskey said.
And he was right. Laskey made the opening night roster with the Pelicans, while Mervis joined one week later. And to nobody’s surprise, they became roommates once again in the Myrtle Beach area just like their days back in college.
“They’re kind of like an old married couple,” Pollard said of his former players. “Matt has always been a grumpy old man; Adam has a happy-go-lucky personality about him. They’ve always been the yin to their yang. They’re pretty different people.”
So, that takes it back to the routine ground ball against the RiverDogs. One play with a huge backstory- a play that’s been practiced between the two players involved for years.
“There’s definitely a comfort factor there,” Laskey said. “Me and him have practiced PFP’s (pitcher’s fielding practice) since college.”
In the three years that Pollard had them together, he’s confident that their mentality is strong enough to move them up the Cubs’ system.
“I just try to encourage them to build off the principles we built at Duke,” Pollard said. “Be the same guy every day, and both those guys have really embraced that. They have a blue-collar work ethic and I think that will give them a chance to move up.”
No matter what’s next for Mervis and Laskey in their baseball careers, they’ll always be linked by a simple 3-1 putout, with years of friendship in between.
<p>Matt Mervis hitting for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans</p>
<p>Adam Laskey pitching for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans</p>
