The FBI and Department of Justice have launched an investigation into the St. Louis Cardinals’ front office for allegedly hacking into the Houston Astros’ internal network to gain access to sensitive club and player information.
Investigators believe Cardinals employees broke into the Astros proprietary database and gained access to “internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports. However, officials did not identify individual Cardinals employees involved or if upper-level management was aware of what was going on. The FBI is leading the investigation and has issued subpoenas on the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for electronic messages.
Early indications indicate that the hack may have been a result of vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals wanting to disrupt the system. It was designed by Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager, who had previously been very successful with the Cardinals up until 2011.
As a proper sports fan, I find it necessary to point out that this cheating scandal, which may result in federal crimes, has had very little news coverage. But apparently the issue of supposedly, possibly, maybe slightly deflating NFL balls, according to a flawed investigation, earns national news for weeks. So I would like to take this time to say, #FreeBrady.