Report: FBI investigating St. Louis Cardinals for hacking Astros

ST. LOUIS, June 16 (UPI) -- The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful teams in Major League Baseball (MLB), is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department for hacking into the internal network of the Houston Astros to "steal closely guarded information about player personnel," The New York Times reported.

Investigators say the team-built databases that were hacked housed discussions on trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports. Subpoenas have been served on the Cardinals and MLB for "electronic correspondence," according to the Times.

The league "has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros' baseball operations database," Rob Manfred, baseball's commissioner, said in a statement.

The Cardinals said in a statement, "The St. Louis Cardinals are aware of the investigation into the security breach of the Houston Astros' database. The team has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to do so. Given that this is an ongoing federal investigation, it is not appropriate for us to comment further."

The Cardinals (42-21) own baseball's best record and have 11 World Series titles, good for second place behind the New York Yankees. The Cardinals won the 2011 World Series.

"Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros' general manager who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011," the Times reported.

The Astros and Cardinals played in the same division in the National League from 1994 to 2012.

Last June, Deadpsin reported that documents taken from an Astros private online database were posted at Anonib, a website where people can "anonymously share hacked or leaked information."

The Cardinals have won 19 pennants, had 27 playoff appearances, and are 9,332-8,583 from 1900 to 2015.