absolutely ridiculous state of the union, from ✘
First of all, wow... 2023 was unreal. Thank you for supporting my absolutely ridiculous ideas and our vision at Absolutely Ridiculous to bring more art, culture and self-expression to the game.
2023 started in my garage and ended in a 10,000 square foot Studio X in our hometown of Nashville, TN. We are now featured in a video game, have won awards, expanded our team, been featured on television and national publications, and the list of unexpected blessings goes on.
year in review
2023 was the year of the sliding mitt. When I decided to reimagine the sliding mitt, it was a no brainer to me. At that time, sliding mitts that weren't black were considered loud and different. Adding the drip design to the sliding mitt and changing the materials and fit to be more comfortable, made a bigger impact than I ever imagined.
So, I pushed it further, adding fur, new materials and more. This paved the way for the best players in the world to be wearing our sliding mitts on the world's biggest stage, with players on both teams wearing our sliding mitts in the World Series. Spurring copycats from the biggest brands in the industry isn't a bad thing. Our goal is to make sports more fun, and if we're inspiring others to follow suit, we're accomplishing our goal because, in the end, it's YOU that matters.
have changed since the release of the first Ice Cream Glove. Our imagination and risk, along with your self-expression and passion for sports, has leaked into every product in the sport now, with baseball bats, gloves, and endless other products, featuring drip and other designs, bringing more flare and fun to the game.
Sliding mitts lead to shin guards, elbow guards, and hand guards, all of which have paved the path for what to look forward to in 2024...
what to look forward to
As you may have already seen and heard, we aren't just baseball. Baseball is my background and many of those on our team, but we aim to reimagine
sports as a whole.
In 2024 you'll see Absolutely Ridiculous Pickleball and Absolutely Ridiculous Golf hit the site, and possibly a 3rd new sport that we will share later this year. All of which I'm extremely excited about as I believe our Pickleball Paddles will compete quality and performance wise with the best paddles in the world. They will also be USA Pickleball Approved.
Before that however, as you saw first in MLB the Show 23 & 24, our batting gloves, which have been in development for over two years, will drop. We believe these gloves will change the way players view batting gloves. Jazz Chisholm Jr. helped develop the product quality, and as a product reviewer stated, “these are the nicest gloves I’ve ever worn.”
Another new product you’ll see on some of the biggest stars in baseball are our premium baseball belts. These will be debuted by our newest athlete, Major League Baseball two-time Cy Young Award Winner Blake Snell in a few weeks. You will then see us share an impressive list of the best players in the world that reached out to us asking us to do their belts after they heard about them this offseason. We plan to have them for sale to the public this year as well.
Speaking of a new players, in addition to Blake Snell, I'm also excited to watch Elly de la Cruz play in his first full season on the Absolutely Ridiculous Team and compete against World Series Champion Evan Carter who also joined the Absolutely Ridiculous Team this year. They'll both have their own signature collections, which I'm currently designing with my team at Absolutely Ridiculous.
Also launching her own signature collection is the best college softball player in the country, Maya Brady. Maya is our first and only NIL deal, and this season she will be adorned with our shin guards and sliding mitts all season, along with many of her teammates.
From NIL deals to collaborations that will surprise the baseball world, we
continue to be creative. You've already seen our new partnership with
outdoor brand Mossy Oak. But what you haven't seen: we have official
collaborations dropping this year with two of the biggest anime brands in the
world.
Our work with niche audiences will not be stopping at anime, but will
include iconic brands, individuals, and more to bring connection with
audiences that give true unique self-expression for baseball players and
athletes with all interests.
With the exciting collaborations coming up, I wanted to share how the collabs
came about so we're also in the process right now of filming our first season of Imagined by X, a short series sharing the creative process that goes into creating some of the world’s most impactful art. Each episode will bring a new piece from Absolutely Ridiculous in collaboration with the artists, brands and personalities featured on each episode.
Lastly, we were thrilled to release the Glove Loop. The Glove Loop was an
invention of mine that we have a patent pending on. We continue to improve and tweak the Glove Loop with feedback from you to make sure it's solving your problems and not creating them. Version 2.0 will be a major update from 1.0 thanks to customer feedback.
This won't be the last patented product you'll see this year. We have at least three more this year alone that we can’t talk about right now, but I don't make anything that I don't feel is needed and will be quality.
Again, this is why the batting gloves took over two years of development, to ensure the fit, leather, colors and feel were all unique and the best option that exists on the market.
following your feedback
This past holiday rush was our first true holiday season. We thought that we were prepared for it with our custom baseball glove making process, but we simply underestimated the demand and overestimated our abilities to meet that demand in a timely manner.
We didn't correctly predict the demand and leather availability from the tanneries for us to make those gloves. We own that, and we've learned. We have also been determining how to keep customers updated on their custom-made gloves with such a small team. This has been a learning process, but we're learning fast.
Though we offer a cancel anytime policy plus a 30-day return window so that every purchase can be made worry free, we still want to make sure that we're overdelivering on the experience that you have with Absolutely Ridiculous. We've heard enough voices to make us want to step back and put our undivided attention into solving the problem immediately for you all.
As of March 1st, 2024, we've made all items on the website and all future drops be in stock and ready to ship. This means no more waiting on your glove orders going forward. When you order it, we'll start packing it up and getting it ready to ship to you right away.
This also means that we've discontinued new custom glove orders as of March 1st, 2024, to deliver an even greater customer experience and focus all of our glovesmith attention onto all current custom glove orders that are in production. We've stopped all new inventory production and focused all glove production solely on outstanding custom glove orders until they're all caught up.
Once we are caught up on all previously placed custom glove orders, we'll start production on future drops. This new model enhances our RARE Edition experience, though it will also mean that, for now, we will not continue to offer a custom build option on the RARE Editions. There will be a set collection of glove options to pick from that are ready to ship. Once they're gone, they're gone forever, so the number of gloves offered will be less than normal, and will make our gloves even rarer.
Going forward I'm happy to say that we can provide the same insanely fast delivery experience that our sliding mitts, glove loops, hats, etc. have for all of our RARE Edition gloves now, not just most of them.
For those currently waiting on their custom glove orders, we're working diligently to get them finished and shipped out to you so that you can put them to use. Some of you haven't received a hard delivery date yet because we are working to get a firm delivery date on leather from a supplier who is backed up. Our small in-house customer experience team is doing their absolute best to keep you up to date with what they know. We all understand and share the frustration. The delays and poor communication are not an acceptable standard going forward.
For those concerned about us shutting down custom glove options, I get it.
However, we feel that we can provide a better experience when we are more in control of the delivery date to the customer after purchase. With custom glove orders, we're at the mercy of suppliers of the leather. Leather availability seems to change daily, and the leather must also meet our quality standard.
We're a new small brand in Nashville, TN competing for a limited supply of materials against the world's biggest brands. We hit our first real bump in the road with leather gloves and we’re working through it (as an FYI, every other product we have has had no delays or issues and we take pride in that). The challenges regarding our leather supply creates a scenario where we can never be sure when a glove may get finished, as we've learned after this last holiday season.
When things change, we'll bring back custom options, but until then, we're excited to guarantee shipping windows going forward!
studio ✘
In addition to the opening of Studio X we are also hitting the road for the first time through our Pop-Up Gallery that will bring our drops to you all around the country. It will be a mini version of our Nashville Studio X, but focused on surprise pop up sales, and exclusive drops for our first in person experiences around the country.
Again, thank you all for everything, and especially thank you to those that have been patient with us while we figured things out. Beyond gloves, I can't wait for you to see everything 2024 has planned, from the public opening of Studio X in Nashville this summer, to pickleball, new leather for our gloves, and golf along with some wild collabs and more coming to life this year. Anything you need, don't hesitate to reach out to us.