RINGOLSBY: Uhlaender touched many

Farewell, Ted Uhlaender: With that sweet stroke...a star on a few Strat-O-Matic teams.

Baseball took a hit on Thursday.

Ted Uhlaender died.

...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. Shortly before noon Thursday, he died of a heart attack.