How Andrew Lindsey went home to Waverly destruction and found Tennessee baseball
Mike WilsonAndrew Lindsey walked into houses like time capsules.
Family pictures adorned walls, but the people were gone. Furniture was untouched and abandoned. Belongings were everywhere, remnants and relics of lives deserted. The highest high-water marks preserved the jarring reality by surpassing Lindsey’s 6-foot-3 frame.
That was Lindsey’s existence a year ago. He was at home in Waverly, Tennessee, working for the city and helping clean up in the aftermath of deadly, devastating flooding that rocked the small town 66 miles west of Nashville.
“To go from working on the side of the road in an orange work vest to wearing orange and getting Friday night starts in the SEC …,” said Mark Lindsey, Andrew’s father.
His thoughts drifted.
Reality can be too good to believe.
Lindsey is a star and a remedy for Tennessee baseball, an unassuming wonder for the Vols' pitching staff who once had left the game behind. He went home to find healing and renewal in his brokenness and the brokenness of his hometown.
How flood clean-up shaped Andrew Lindsey
Lindsey was retired, a former college pitcher who was finished with baseball.
He had played at Charlotte in 2021 after two seasons at Walters State and left to address personal issues that coincided with difficulties with the situation in the 49ers program. Lindsey moved home in early 2022, a 22-year-old with a mid-90s fastball searching for balance.
“I definitely thought about what life would be like if I didn’t quit or walk away from the game,” said Lindsey, who declined to discuss specifics about the personal issues he faced. "But there were many days I was perfectly content with retiring and moving on.”
Lindsey walked into Workforce Essentials, an employment agency in Waverly. A temporary position was available via a grant to support the city with flood relief.
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He could work for the Waverly Street Department, which needed help months after disaster. Waverly was pummeled by a once-in-a-thousand-years rain event on Aug. 21, 2021, that killed at least 21 people and left the Middle Tennessee town in shambles, as flooding destroyed homes, businesses and infrastructure.
Lindsey, who is from nearby New Johnsonville, jumped at the chance to help.
Lindsey was hired in February 2022 essentially as a gofer, a fill-in-the-cracks, do-what-you’re-asked job that allowed him to help clean up after the devastation. He had traded in his glove for a shovel or a weed-eater — depending on the day.
“I knew there were a lot of things that needed help around the city,” Lindsey said. “Working for them, I had the opportunity to help clean up roads, redo roads, dig ditches. Help clean up houses and rubble from the flood that caused so much damage.”
The former Waverly Central star relished the opportunity to give back. He cleaned up debris, recalling seeing rocks from the nearby river deposited around the city. He mowed lawns. He grabbed a shovel and repaired the streets. He spent days with a weed-eater. He filled potholes, the smell of asphalt sticking with him still.
He took on any and all jobs willingly with a can-do attitude.
“It was the perfect thing for him to do,” said Mark Lindsey, an agency manager with Farm Bureau Insurance in Houston County. “It settled him back down and gave him some perspective.”
That perspective, Mark Lindsey believes, came from seeing the depth of the devastation in Waverly. It inherently makes you think about life, a journey that started for Lindsey when he left Charlotte. He spent his first few post-baseball months traveling to visit family and friends. He dove into his faith, recentering on God. He moved into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house with his dad. They had breakfast and dinner together daily, father and son recounting their days. They battled each other in Star Wars pinball and laser tag in the evenings.
Lindsey dove into the weeds of his mind and soul at home. He got his hands dirty at work. It was good.
“The gritty work — there is nobody paying attention to that,” Lindsey said. “You are just working hard because that is what you are doing. You are just working hard. Coming back, that experience gave me a lot of appreciation for the hard work that goes into the game that allows you to be great.”
How Andrew Lindsey returned to baseball
Lindsey arrived at work one day wearing black-framed glasses, his dark hair curled over his forehead. He drew the nickname “Superman.” There was suspicion he was a basketball player because of his height and build.
Tony Burns, a laborer at the City of Waverly, soon learned Lindsey’s background. He was a baseball player — a pitcher working as a ditch-digger. Burns’ son, Malachi, is a baseball-obsessed teenager and they bonded over baseball.
“He came in one day and said I have something for you,” said Burns, 34. “It was one of his gloves he used in college. … He said, ‘I want your son to have this glove. Make sure he takes good care of it.’”
The job that Lindsey viewed as the start of his path away from baseball proved to be his path back to the game.
The Tennessee River Baseball Raptors needed a coach for their 13-and-under team, which included Burns’ son as a pitcher. The parents got talking and approached Lindsey about running the team. Lindsey thought about it. He and his father talked it through. Lindsey surprised Burns at work one day in March, letting him know he was going to be the coach.
“Getting back to baseball was really the Lord working in his life,” Mark Lindsey said.
Lindsey caught the baseball bug anew. He saw kids in love with the game. He had to see himself in them, youths pursuing passion. He got the bird’s eye view of the game instead of being in the nitty gritty. Burns witnessed Lindsey's joy as he coached.
He hadn’t thrown in months but picked up his glove before becoming the coach. He knew a bunch of teenagers would insist he throw for them as a recent college baseball pitcher. He had to make sure he wasn’t washed up — for them and for himself.
Playing catch after practice turned into bullpen sessions, then into awe-inspiring long toss at the high school field one day.
Burns was a cutoff man. So was Brandon Bates, another father with a son on the team. A player stood at one foul pole. Lindsey was at the other.
“He was throwing foul pole to foul pole on the high school field with one step,” Burns said.
Lindsey had questioned his decision to walk away from baseball. A new question entered his mind in July 2022: Could he go back to the game and play somewhere?
Andrew Lindsey is starring for Tennessee
“It’s gratifying,” Mark Lindsey said, finally finding the words to detail his son’s journey from temporary city employee to Tennessee pitcher.
Gratifying like hearing Vols coach Tony Vitello credit Lindsey with giving Tennessee courage and toughness Friday against Vanderbilt. Mark Lindsey has listened to the comments close to 100 times, each one filling his chest with undefinable, unquantifiable emotion.
“We had this pent-up feeling of we knew he could do this and just needed the right opportunity,” Mark Lindsey said.
Lindsey didn’t know whether his return was possible. The Lindseys called David Shelton, the coach at Walters State where Lindsey had excelled form 2019-20.
“I heard you got the itch again,” Lindsey recalled Shelton saying.
Two days later, Lindsey was on his way to Kingsport to play for Axmen in the Appalachian League. He was on the mound immediately, throwing in the mid-90s like he was at Charlotte when he was 6-2 with a 4.89 ERA in 2021.
SEC schools flocked, including Tennessee. Pitching coach Frank Anderson came to see Lindsey throw. The Vols were all-in. Lindsey committed, signed and enrolled less than two months after deciding to pursue baseball again. It felt strange, surreal even — insane but still pleasant to Lindsey.
He earned a bullpen role with a strong fall session and preseason. He emerged as the answer as Tennessee’s heralded starting rotation struggled. Vitello tabbed Lindsey as the Friday night starter before UT’s series at Arkansas, then gave him the ball again against Vanderbilt last Friday.
Lindsey struck out a career-high 10 batters in 6⅔ innings, allowing three runs on six hits. He stuck to his nature afterward, seeking to embrace his dad and brother, Alex, in the pandemonium of a walk-off win.
“It is hard to believe that this time last year we were working in the backyard cutting down trees and planting some grass,” Mark Lindsey said. “Now, he is pursuing his dream again.”
Lindsey’s goal in returning to baseball was measured. He wanted to compete at the highest level but isn’t thinking about what the decision to pitch could mean for his future. He is thinking about taking the ball for No. 16 Tennessee (27-14, 8-10 SEC) against Mississippi State (24-16, 6-12) on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, SEC Network).
It’s batters to face and outs to get. One pitch, one batter, one inning.
He doesn’t know whether he would have been regretful if he never came back to baseball, but he knows he has no regrets about leaving the game for a year. He found an appreciation for his parents. He learned about himself and got his feet on solid ground. He gained a new joy for pitching.
He also gained perspective.
Lindsey got a flat tire Sunday night. He and his dad had dinner, then got to repairing the punctured tire. Reality set in. Lindsey looked to his dad and allowed himself a moment of celebratory clarity.
“That was me on Friday night,” Lindsey said. “I did that.”
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.