Former Red Ted Uhlaendar Has Died

[cumberlandreds]

Older Reds fans like me may remember Ted Uhlaendar who played with the Reds in the 72-73 timeframe. He was mainly a PH and spare outfielder. According to todays Washington Post he died at his ranch in Atwood, Kansas of a heart attack. He was 68. His daughter is an Olympian on the skeleton team. I'm sorry I don't have a link. I saw it in today's Post.

[BCubb2003]

I seemed to have had a lot of his baseball cards.

[marcshoe]

I seemed to have had a lot of his baseball cards.

Me too. My first thought was of this:

[Tony Cloninger]

He seemed to lose his batting stroke when he came to Cincinnati.....or he just did not play enough to get into any groove.

[Heath]

Me too. My first thought was of this:

So, when did the Reds play at Yankee Stadium?

Might possibly be an airbrush hat from the Indians.

[marcshoe]

I've always assumed it was an airbrush. In '72 there were some obvious ones.



That was the first year I collected cards (I had a few from '70, including Bench), and that year's series still sticks in my mind.

[redsmetz]

Here's the AP obit. Interestingly he bookended his career on two World Series bound teams, although he was not eligible to play in the '65 Series with the Twins. Baseball history is full of Ted Uhlaenders.

ATWOOD, Kan.—Former major league outfielder Ted Uhlaender, whose daughter races for the U.S. skeleton team and is eyeing her second Olympic berth, has died. He was 68.
Uhlaender died Thursday after a heart attack, the San Francisco Giants said. He had worked as a scout for the team since 2002, and was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer last year.

He spoke with his daughter, Katie Uhlaender, by phone Thursday morning, shortly before she ended the World Cup skeleton sliding season with a silver medal in Park City, Utah. On the awards podium following the race, Katie Uhlaender said she raced that day to give her family a needed emotional boost.

At the time, she didn't know her father had already died.

Ted Uhlaender played in the majors from 1965-72 with Minnesota, Cleveland and Cincinnati. A sure-handed, fleet center fielder, he hit .263 with 36 home runs and 285 RBIs.

His health was failing for months, and Katie Uhlaender—who competed in the 2006 Turin Olympics and is a favorite to lead the U.S. team into Vancouver next year—said it affected her focus on sliding.

"All year I was feeling like my priorities were messed up, and I felt like I should be with my family instead of sledding," she said shortly before learning her father died.

Ted Uhlaender had been hospitalized for another round of chemotherapy, and doctors found a blood clot Thursday morning.

His daughter has since returned to Lake Placid, N.Y., where
the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation is based, and is training for the world championships to be held there later this month.
"She'll slide because she knows her father would have wanted her to slide," USBSF spokeswoman Amanda Bird said Saturday night.

Katie Uhlaender will leave Lake Placid on Monday to join her family for the funeral, which has been scheduled for Thursday.

Ted Uhlaender started out with the Twins, joining them too late in the 1965 season to be eligible for the World Series that October. He played five years on a team more noted for big hitters such as Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva.

Uhlaender was traded with Graig Nettles and Dean Chance to Cleveland in a package for Luis Tiant after the 1969 season. He was traded to Cincinnati for his final year, and ended his career with a pinch-hitting appearance in a Game 7 loss to Oakland in the 1972 World Series.

In later years, he worked for the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees. He spent two years with the Giants, became Cleveland's first base coach in 2000-01 and then returned to San Francisco.

[redsmetz]

He has a resemblance to Henry Fonda, IMO.

[redsmetz]

In 1967 he played in 140 games for the Twins. I noticed in the Gamelogs that he had a pretty good doubleheader on 7/2/67, went a combined 2 for 7, both doubles, plus a walk and knocked in 4 runs, score another himself.

I noticed that he was the player we received when we traded Milt Wilcox. I think it wasn't a very good traded for us. Wilcox had some decent years for Sparky in Detroit. It would have been nice for Cincinnati to have had both of them during that time.

[Tony Cloninger]

Milt hurt himself in 1972 (I have the SN cover with him from that year) after he started off big....and even said he felt that CLE future was better beacuse of the younger players they had (Sounds like he did not read Baseball America at that time)

I agree it was bad in the sense that the Reds always needed pitching....but after 1971 they felt they had enough of it and needed fast OF in the turf.
He was one of those ballplayers who just seemed to lose their skills quickly.

I looked at the CLE roster and thought who else would have fit better.....and John Lowenstein was the only one who jumped out.
He had speed and versatility......was a better hitter later in his career with BAL.

Most people if this borad was around would have said to trade McGlothlin and get a better return....plus the fact that Jim's numbers ... had gone down after the middle of 1970. He was also a little older.

[redsmetz]

Milt hurt himself in 1972 (I have the SN cover with him from that year) after he started off big....and even said he felt that CLE future was better beacuse of the younger players they had (Sounds like he did not read Baseball America at that time)

I agree it was bad in the sense that the Reds always needed pitching....but after 1971 they felt they had enough of it and needed fast OF in the turf.
He was one of those ballplayers who just seemed to lose their skills quickly.

I looked at the CLE roster and thought who else would have fit better.....and John Lowenstein was the only one who jumped out.
He had speed and versatility......was a better hitter later in his career with BAL.

Most people if this borad was around would have said to trade McGlothlin and get a better return....plus the fact that Jim's numbers ... had gone down after the middle of 1970. He was also a little older.

And, of course, as the saying goes "hindsight is always 20/20." We cann see things so much more clearly from this vantage point.

[westofyou]

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/40933

Baseball took a hit on Thursday.

Ted Uhlaender died.

Put Alex Rodriguez and his lies and performance-enhancing drugs on hold for a moment. Ignore the accusations of a former female acquaintance about Roberto Alomar and AIDS. Forget, temporarily, about the dog-and-pony show that Roger Clemens has become.

The fact that those athletes ruined the dreams of many by proving athletic superstars are prone to the same stupid actions as the average Joe is a subject for another day.

Uhlaender was a superstar, too, but his stardom transcended a solid, albeit far-from-spectacular eight-year big-league career that was followed by a stint in coaching and scouting during the 50 years that he made a living in the game.

Uhlaender's notoriety came from his baseball career, which included time with the minor league Denver Bears in 1962 and again in 1965, when he led the Pacific Coast League by hitting .340. But it was in life that he excelled.

He was a friend, in the true sense, to those whose lives he touched.

The father of five, including a daughter Katie, who is an Olympic skeleton racer, Uhlaender was born in Chicago, raised in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and graduated from Baylor University.

In recent years, when he wasn't on the road scouting for the San Francisco Giants, he split time between a home outside Dillon, where his wife teaches skiing, and a ranch in western Kansas, where he raised Tennessee Walkers and cattle.

The impressive residence he built on the Kansas plains had a picture gallery that included a photo of Kaiser Wilhelm, standing next to his chief aide, who Uhlaender explained was his grandfather.

Uhlaender was a throwback, in baseball and in life.

His word was good. His work ethic was even better.

In the last year, he had been slowed. When he developed some vision problems last spring, he decided to visit a doctor, who discovered the 68-year-old Uhlaender was suffering from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that requires stem cell transplants for treatment and can be put in remission but can never be cured.

On Wednesday, Uhlaender received a checkup at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and was told the cancer seemed under control. Uhlaender was encouraged enough that the Giants were actually making plans for him to get back out and do some scouting, as much for his mental therapy as anything.

Uhlaender, however, never received a scouting assignment. Late Thursday morning, he died of a heart attack.

[Vada Pinson Fan]

Very sad to read the obit. about Ted. He was an unassuming guy that just tried to do the job he was asked to do. A good team player. I don't remember him being a fleet center-fielder but perhaps that was because he was primarily a pinch-hitter with the Reds. I don't recall him playing defense for Cincinnati, though I'm almost sure he did.

I got a lot of Ted Uhlaender cards too back then. Seemed like a disproportionate amount but I could always trade him with my friends.

Rest In Peace Ted.

[Dom Heffner]

Dumb question- Why would there be a Ted Uhlaender card that had its condition rated?

Who would care if it were a PSA 4 or a 10? It's Ted Uhlaender, not Ted Williams.