Joseph and Irene Hauser

Joseph "Unser Choe" Hauser was a professional baseball player who played in both the majors and minors during the "Golden Era" of baseball. He met his wife, Irene, at the Ziegler Candy Company in Milwaukee, where she worked in the front office. Joseph was known in Sheboygan for managing the "Sheboygan Indians" baseball team. Both Joseph and Irene are buried here in the Calvary Cemetery.

Joseph Hauser, the homerun king, was born January 12, 1899 in Germany. His family immigrated to America soon after his birth and settled in Milwaukee where he started playing sandlot baseball as a kid.

By the age of 14, Joe left school to work full time but continued to play ball regularly. He also started smoking his iconic “stogies” at this tender age. Ask anyone who knew Joe, and they’ll say that he always, always, smoked cigars.

In 1918 at age 18, he was recommended to play for the Waupun minor league baseball team as a pitcher. As he became a star player with them, the Philadelphia A’s, a major league team, started to take notice and brought him to training camp a year later. Unfortunately, he lost his chance as a pitcher due to a bad case of nerves and was sent back down to the minors.

For the next four seasons, he played for teams in Rhode Island and for the Milwaukee Brewers, which was a minor league team at the time. It was while playing for Milwaukee that he picked up his nick name of “Unser Choe” which mean “Our Joe” in German.

Joe later explained that fans would really hound players if they played badly, but said,

“when they got on me, my fans would yell, ‘Don’t get on him! Das ist Unser Choe!’, which was German for ‘That is our Joe!’ The German crowd was with me, and they made it tough for the people who heckled me.”

Since he was playing for his hometown team, friends, family, and neighbors came out in droves to support him.

Finally, in 1922 Joe was given another chance with the Philadelphia A’s, becoming their starting first baseman. Here he played with and against famous ballplayers like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth.

In fact, by 1924 “Unser Choe” was second in home runs, coming in behind the “Great Bambino” himself, Babe Ruth! He would go on to be the only professional baseball player to hit more than 60 home runs two seasons in his career.

During the off season, Joe worked for the Ziegler Candy Company in Milwaukee to supplement his baseball income, which wasn’t very much at the time. Here he met the love of his life, Irene Kaye, who worked in the front office.

Irene was born March 3, 1900 in Milwaukee and grew up going to a Catholic church and school on what is now historic Mitchell Street. A small, evening wedding was performed on July 1, 1924 after Joe had finished playing a game earlier in the day. They never had any children because they felt it wasn’t fair to raise a child when Joe was on the road so much traveling with the team.

A year after their marriage, Joe was set to become a superstar player, when he suddenly shattered his knee cap during training. He would never play the same.

After 19 years playing the game he loved, Unser Choe officially retired in 1937. Irene and Joe moved to Sheboygan to live in the Enz Manor apartment building on N. 5^th Street which still stands today.

Although his career as a player had ended, Joe’s love for baseball never did. In fact, his life in baseball was still in full swing!

He ushered in a new era of baseball in Sheboygan when he agreed to manage the Sheboygan Chairs in 1938. He helped bring up their class status, and started a campaign to rename them the Sheboygan Indians. Under the new name, they finished 1^st in 1942, 1947, 1948, and 1951.

Joe also shared his passion with the community when he opened his own sporting goods store on N. 8^th Street called Joe Hauser’s Sporting Goods. Joe ran the store from 1938 until he sold the business in 1986 at the age of 87. The same year Irene died.

For the next eight years he continued to live in the apartment he and Irene had shared for 62 years, and he’d light a candle in her memory each and every night.

Joseph “Unser Choe” Hauser passed away July 11, 1997 at the age of 98, but until the very end, he continued to share his legendary stories of his time in the game, and give batting advice to any and all that would listen. 

Klein, Gary C. "Sheboygan baseball legend hit more than 60 home runs twice and earned the nickname 'Unser Choe' playing for the Milwaukee Brewers." Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan) December 22nd, 2022.

Klein, Gary C. "Throwback photos: Joe "Unser Choe" Hauser pro career bumped elbows with Babe Ruth." Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan) December 21st, 2022.

Held, Chad. "Remembering the Indians: Sheboygan’s connection to Major League Baseball." Sheboygan Sun (Sheboygan) April 15th, 2022.