FBI investigating Cardinals for hacking Astros' internal network

Cardinals officials are suspected of breaking into the Astros' team databases to gain access to information regarding statistics, scouting reports and trades.

SI Wire | Jun 16, 2015

FBI investigating Cardinals for hacking Astros' internal network /

The FBI and prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice are investigating the St. Louis Cardinals for allegedly hacking into the internal networks of the Houston Astros, The New York Timesreports.

Cardinals officials are suspected of breaking in to the Astros' team databases to gain access to information regarding statistics, scouting reports and trades, according to The New York Times. Law enforcement is investigating unnamed members of the Cardinals front office.

The FBI has served the Cardinals and Major League Baseball with subpoenas, The New York Times reports. Authorities suspect that Cardinals employees hacked the Astros partly to sabotage Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, who was previously a Cardinals executive.

Law enforcement believes Cardinals employees hacked into the Astros' network after Luhnow departed the team for Houston in 2011. The New York Times reports that team employees were concerned that Luhnow had brought structural information from the Cardinals' computer network to Houston.

Internal Astros trade chatter was leaked from "Ground Control," the team's computer network, last year. Following the leak, MLB contacted the FBI about a possible hacking situation, and investigators discovered that Houston's databases had been infiltrated by a computer located at a residence where some Cardinals employees lived, according to The New York Times.

A separate report by Yahoo.com Tuesday pinpointed that residence as being in Jupiter, Fla., where the Cardinals play their spring training games.

MLB said it has been fully cooperating with the federal investigation.

"Once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials, we will evaluate the next steps and will make decisions promptly," MLB said in a statement.

The Astros and Cardinals both played in the National League Central division from 1994 to 2012 before Houston moved to the American League West.

The Astros, who are currently in first place in the AL West, have been widely lauded for their turnaround experiment under Luhnow's watch. Sports Illustrated's Ben Reiter examined Houston's "radical rebuilding project" last year, with the corresponding SI magazine cover declaring that the Astros would win the World Series in 2017.

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