Sunday, February 9, 2014

Katie & Ted Uhlaender: Olympic Athlete Daughter & Ballplayer Father

Recently via the fine twitter account of @ObxLeatherman I found out that Katie Uhlaender, A US Competitor in the Olympic Skeleton, is also the daughter of 60/70s era Outfielder Ted Uhlaender.

1966 Topps #264 Ted Uhlaender (RC)


Sochi is the third olympiad for the 29 year old Katie Uhlaender.  Uhlaender's resume includes a 6th place finish at the 2006 Olympics in Torino. She also has Olympic aspirations in the summer sport of weightlifting.

This years Women's Skeleton events will be held on Thursday and Friday (13th & 14th).  Not sure if the game competition will be on NBC, but will be keeping an eye on that.

Sadly Katie's father Ted Uhlaender died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 59.

Baseball Card Database
1969 Topps #194 Ted Uhlaender (Swiped from Baseball Card Database)

To honor her father Katie keeps Ted's 1969 Topps card taped to her sled. As a card collector, I find this to be a really hip tribute. The 1969 Ted Uhlaender card is show above.

Ted Uhlaender spent eight seasons in the Majors mostly with the Twins, but was also a member of the Reds 1972 National Leaque Championship squad. During game 2 of the World Series he had a pinch hit double off of future Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter

Katie Uhlaender has a card in the 2014 Topps US Olympic and Paralympic Team Hopefuls Trading Card set (including an auto). I would think that this would make the Uhlaender's one of the few father-daughter combinations to both have Topps Cards - very unique.

2014 Topps US Olympics #84 Katie Uhlaender
In our 2014 Topps Olympic Cards break we feature Katie Uhlaender a bit more. That post can be found here

More Uhleander's
1967 Topps Baseball
Von's Cards (2014 Olympic Katie, 1972 Topps Ted)  

Sources
Sochi2014
SportsRef/Baseball-ref
Baseball Card Database
New York Post
Cardboard Connection
Phungo 2014 Topps US Olympics Box Break

Updates (2018 0211) - Added Katie Uhlaender card and link to related box break.  

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a thousand words

a thousand words
2008 World Champions