St. Louis Cardinals Under FBI Investigation For Hacking Houston Astros

The NYT is reporting the St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI for hacking the Houston Astros’ computer database.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a network of the Houston Astros that housed special databases the team had built, according to law enforcement officials. Internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports were compromised, the officials said.

Why would the Cardinals allegedly do this? Jeff Luhnow left the Cardinals’ scouting department to become Astros GM. He set up a computer system called “Ground Control,” similar to the Cardinals’ “RedBird” system. Cardinals officials believed Luhnow and the employees who joined him stole proprietary information.

Luhnow or some of the personnel that left the Cardinals with him used the same passwords they did in St. Louis.

Investigators believe Cardinals officials, concerned that Mr. Luhnow had taken their idea and proprietary baseball information to the Astros, examined a master list of passwords used by Mr. Luhnow and the other officials who had joined the Astros when they worked for the Cardinals. The Cardinals officials are believed to have used those passwords to gain access to the Astros’ network, law enforcement officials said.

So, about that whole “Cardinal Way” thing? With all of their vigilance protecting baseball’s unwritten rules the Cardinals should have been a bit more concerned about the United States’ written ones.

Documents from “Ground Control” had been posted online previously.

[Photo via USAT]