About Us
I made this video to tell you a little bit about my "why"
The Long Story
Custom Numbered is the story of how I went from getting beat by a small child in a paper airplane contest to creating a product worn by 3 World Series MVP's and subsequently dragging my mother out of retirement.
Back in 2012, around the time "Kung Fu Panda" was chopping up the Detroit Tigers, I launched a website called What Pros Wear. I was a baseball player oddly obsessed with the finer pro touches of my favorite ballplayers, like Derek Jeter’s #2 wristband and Gleyber Torres' snakeskin cleats. I was fortunate to interview superstars like Bryce Harper and Mike Trout right in front of their locker, and to witness their child-like glow when they showed me their personalized gear.
At the same time, I watched the price of gear skyrocket, making it harder for kids to play sports. I hated seeing this because sports saved me. No matter the game, that confident, proud feeling of taking the field with your teammates is as close to heaven as it gets. I wanted to bottle that feeling up and sell it for a reasonable price--give as many kids as possible one more reason to take the field with pride.
One day before a game, I ironed a felt #2 on a black wristband for my roommate who played rec ball with me. It barely hung there. Looked objectively bad.
He wore it for years. Janky as it was, getting a "made just for you" item is a VERY happy moment. A big league moment. So after a successful "prototype," I got it in my head to create something that was good enough for pros, but affordable enough for t-ballers, so athletes of any age or skill level could have that big league moment.
That's when I lost the paper airplane contest to the small child. This I felt was the perfect time to build a pro quality, technical, made to order product for less than $40.
Or maybe it wasn't, but it was 2021 and I was desperate so I talked myself into it. "I've played ball for 30 years and I've worn so many bad sleeves," I told myself. "Athletes need a better solution," I thought. "Why should pros be the only ones who get pro quality?"
My little digital media company was getting hit from all sides. It was time to take a job or take a leap.
A father/daughter Texas embroidery shop sewed our first sleeve. #6 in black and white. I sold it to myself. At a discount.
Business was slow, so we had plenty of time to develop an improved version in Turkey, where arm sleeves have been custom made for warriors for hundreds of years. Thirteen iterations later, I got a text just before takeoff. It was from Houston's Mauricio Dubon. He told me their star rookie shortstop liked the new sleeves. I played it cool and sent him basically every sleeve I had in inventory before the flight landed.
Three months later, the star rookie shortstop, Jeremy Peña, launched his team to the World Series. He was wearing our sleeve. He is the first of three World Series MVPs to have worn our product. Detroit's least favorite Panda is actually our #1 customer.
Dozens of pro athletes now pay for our sleeves, and we hit a big milestone in sales recently. We have two amazing embroidery teams in St. Louis and Ohio, and my mom came out of retirement to help with customer service (thanks ma). I am most proud to say that we sponsored the local little league this year. I walked by the park with my wife and pup and saw a few kids take the field with our sleeves on, looking proud and confident, and most of all like they were having fun.
Finally got my big league moment.
