Our story
Disruptively original.
Stitch and his childhood friend had a life together long before they had a company. Baseball, Vegas trips, and years of shared history became the starting point for something they could build together. That is where Dope began.
A friendship before a company
The idea they found in Vegas.
Las Vegas was a home away from home for Stitch and his childhood friend. Walking through the casinos, they imagined a paddle that might help them become high rollers themselves. They had a name for it before they had a finished product.
But their story goes back further than those trips. Baseball was part of their childhood. Years of friendship came before the conversations about starting a business. When they decided to build something together, they brought that history with them.
Stitch had a design in mind, shaped in part by a racquet he had never forgotten. High Roller would carry more than a logo. The colors, the pattern, the little details you discover when you open the case—all of it could hold something of the people who made it.
Making it real
A name is only the beginning.
Getting from an idea to the first paddle took two years. Stitch worked with manufacturers, trying materials and finishes, and kept coming back to the reflective gold outline he wanted around the face. It became one of the hardest details to get right.
The delay mattered. So did getting the look right. In summer 2024, High Roller was finally ready—a dark woven face, gold-foil script, playing-card suits at the collar, and that gold line around the edge.
From there, the collection grew beyond the paddle. A patterned case. A shirt. A towel. The smaller things that find a place in a court bag. Their shared history kept turning up in each piece.
“I was told by dozens of people it was impossible.”
Stitch, on developing the gold finish
Their history is in the details.
Vegas
Black and gold, playing-card suits, and the High Roller name. A place they shared became the starting point for a collection.
Baseball
The diamond in the pattern and end cap carries their baseball roots into a different game.
The thread
Four gold Xs near the shirt’s hem hold four ideas together: product, community, mission, and artist. A small signature from Stitch’s interest in textiles.
Then came a much bigger screen.
The paddle they had imagined in Vegas appeared in Michelob ULTRA’s Super Bowl LIX commercial, alongside Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara. Here is High Roller in The ULTRA Hustle.
Still friends. Still building.
A shared story, with more to come.
Stitch and his childhood friend still own and build the company together. One collection has become a way to carry their history into the next chapter: the Vegas trips, their baseball roots, and the decision to make something of their own.
Stitch’s side of the story runs from that remembered racquet to the four gold stitches near a shirt’s hem. There is more to it than the paddle.
