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St. Louis Cardinals Allegedly the New England Patriots of MLB?

By Josh Sippie

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In any business, you will find corruption, subterfuge, espionage and any other clever word that is just a synonym for spying. It is a way to get a leg up on the competition and a way to beat your competitors to the punch. Steal their secrets and you get all their knowledge without having to do the work they did to get there.

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Baseball is a business just like any other, but the competition is a bit more friendly than between, say Microsoft and Sony, that is why it is still a bit shocking when teams like the New England Patriots are caught cheating…. twice.

That is also why it is a bit shocking when the St. Louis Cardinals get caught cheating.

According to the New York Times, the St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI for allegedly hacking into rival’s computer systems, particularly the Houston Astros, who were divisional rivals of the Cardinals from 1994-2012.

The FBI had received word that the Houston Astros system had been compromised and upon investigation, found that it had been accessed by a house that several Cardinal’s officials lived at, according to the New York Times.

This is all rather disturbing news. Jeff Luhnow was a polarizing figure for the Cardinals in their scouting department from 2003-2011 and when he took the job to become the Houston Astros General Manager, taking a lot of St. Louis Cardinal officials with him, it undoubtedly swung opinion a little bit lower on him. A student of the Moneyball era, Luhnow immediately set about transforming the Houston Astros using what he had learned during his time in scouting.

The results, though rough at first, have been astounding, as the Astros now lead the American League West.

Investigators have indicated that the Cardinals may have merely trying to make sure that Luhnow was not using any of the Cardinals secrets for the Astros, but as the General Manager of the Houston Astros, he is entitled to use whatever he has learned throughout his years of experience and yes, that is going to include some information he learned while being employed by the Cardinals.

Another motive being explored is that the Cardinals were just trying to make life difficult for Jeff Luhnow, seeing as how he skipped out on the St. Louis Cardinals. However, a lot of what the Cardinals have now was credited to Jeff Luhnow, including Matt Carpenter, so that kind of disrespect is almost unimaginable. It would lower the St. Louis Cardinals to petty grudge holders. At least the New England Patriots did it to try to get a leg up on the competition.

The other possible motive is that the Cardinals were doing it to still access the mind vault of Jeff Luhnow without having him in the system anymore. As the New York Times points out, the files that the Cardinals allegedly accessed included scouting reports and trade talks. Jeff Luhnow is a master scouter and no doubt the Cardinals are lacking a bit in the department since he left. They saw the success he is now basking in in Houston and saw fit to allegedly steal his knowledge since they have no access to it anymore. At least not legally.

The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most storied teams in all of Major League Baseball. Behind the New York Yankees, no other team embodies more history in America’s past time. They have always been seen as a class organization that was fair and just and did baseball right. They avoided controversy and it was established that they would never do anything to hurt the game of baseball.

Well, if the FBI finds that all of these alleged accusations are true, then the St. Louis Cardinals have left a huge streaking smudge across their history and successes. As the New York Times states, this is the first time in professional sports history that a team has hacked into another team. Most of the time it happens from foreign countries, but the St. Louis Cardinals had the alleged audacity to do it right in the heart of the United States.

It is important to keep a level-head and not start branding the St. Louis Cardinals as the New England Patriots of baseball just yet. There is a reason why every accusation was forwarded with ‘alleged’ in this story. Nothing is certain yet. But when the FBI gets involved, dirty secrets have a tendency of getting revealed. We already know that the Astros system was compromised from a location that housed St. Louis Cardinals officials. That in and of itself is pushing the verdict towards guilty.

However, until we know more, lets just hope that one of the most esteemed organizations in baseball did not sink to the levels that they allegedly did.

Next: Grichuk the future of the Cardinals outfield?

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