The St. Louis Cardinals might be dominating baseball in 2015 but one of the game’s premiere organizations finds itself in hot water. According to Michael Schmidt of The New York Times, front office officials of the St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI for hacking into internal networks of the Houston Astros in order to uncover confidential personnel-related information.
The report directly states that the FBI has already uncovered evidence that the team broke into Houston’s secured database, one that includes information on potential trades, prospects and scouting reports.
The officials did not say which employees were the focus of the investigation or whether the team’s highest-ranking officials were aware of the hacking or authorized it. The investigation is being led by the F.B.I.’s Houston field office and has progressed to the point that subpoenas have been served on the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for electronic correspondence.
As pointed out by Schmidt, this could be the first known instance in which a professional sports organization commits corporate espionage. A MLB spokesman released a statement on behalf of commissioner Rob Manfred that said the following:
Major League Baseball has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros’ baseball operations database.
It remains unclear what specific evidence was found and if or what the Cardinals used the breached information for. Furthermore, it is unknown when the alleged incident occurred, if it only took place once and if any of the team’s high ranking officials were directly involved, including chairman William DeWitt, Jr. (above), president William DeWitt III or general manager John Mozeliak.
The team currently leads the NL Central by six games, sitting with baseball’s best record of 42-21 entering Tuesday’s home matinee against the Minnesota Twins.
Photo Courtesy: Bill Greenblatt/UPI
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