St.Louis Cardinals Under Investigation

 

 
The St. Louis Cardinals will be under intense scrutiny not only from Major League Baseball, but more importantly the U.S. Government. The F.B.I. and Department of Justice are investigating whether or not front office officials hacked into Houston Astros internal network servers to access important team information.

Government prosecutors have uncovered evidence that Cardinals’ officials broke into the network where the Astros housed information on players, trade discussions, and stats amongst other things. Reports say that the hacking might have been a vengeful act done by team employees in retaliation to long time Cardinals’ exec Jeff Luhnow leaving the organization and being hired as the Astros GM in 2011. 

Luhnow has a very unconventional method in running a team. He is now reaping the benefits as the Astros have been one of the best teams in baseball. This type of espionage can be beneficial to a team trying to gain scouting reports on the actual team or information they have on others. This could also be valuable on scouting players in the states or internationally. As long as they think the team is credible, this can be very useful data.

The Cardinals have been one of the most successful teams in the past two decades with World Series titles in 2006 and most recently, 2011. This is the first known case that involved one team allegedly hacking into another’s network. According to Major league baseball, they have been aware of the investigation and are fully cooperating with federal investigators. 

Prosecutors have yet to release the names of the officials that have been implicated in the scandal. Sources say Major League Baseball will not take any actions until the investigation has taken its course.