At the beginning of the baseball season, we gave away to see a Texas Rangers game, and as a result of that generosity, the Rangers thought it fitting to make it to the . Well … our little giveaway may not have had anything to do with their success, but we like to think our support helped a little.

Understanding that we have customers and employees who are die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fans, I don’t want to turn anyone off with this blog post, but with all of the buzz in the air about the World Series coming back to Arlington this year, I started thinking about the Top 10 Ways SoftLayer is Like the Texas Rangers:

1. Secret /
2. Have a no “I” in “Team” mentality … In fact, there are no I’s in “Texas Rangers” or “SoftLayer.”
3. Teams’ leaders (i.e. coach and the CEO) are … um … charismatic (to say the least).
4. Come ready to play on any day that ends in “y.”
5. Strong lineups all the way through.
6. Texas is home, but both teams do amazing jobs “on the road.”
7. Both have Michaels who like pink.*
8. Both have Louisville Slugger bats … The Rangers’ bats do great things, while SoftLayer’s bats are given to recognize employees that have done great things.
9. Support is awesome from the customers (fans) to the back office to the team on the field making plays.
10. Champions of the World, baby!!**

* Apologies to , as this statement may not be true as applied to him. Each of my blogs to date has a veiled (or obvious) reference to our CFO, and it was very difficult to think of how to incorporate this reference in a blog dealing with the Texas Rangers, so I may have taken undue liberties for which I apologize.

** The aspirations associated with that last comparison may have strayed me from an unbiased comparison.

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(1) tickets for a lucky customer
URL: http://blog.softlayer.com/2011/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/
(2) World Series
URL: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2011/index.jsp
(3) handshakes
URL: http://theinnerlayer.softlayer.com/2008/llli/
(4) fist bumps.
URL: http://blog.softlayer.com/2008/fist-bumps/
(5) Michael Young
URL: http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/4566/michael-young
(6) @badvizsla
URL: http://twitter.com/badvizsla