BOSTON — Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday addressed the FBI’s investigation into whether members of the St. Louis Cardinals’ front office hacked into the Houston Astros’ computer database to steal player information.
“What has been reported — and we knew about it well in advance of the report — is there is an ongoing investigation with respect to an unauthorized entry into Houston’s system,” Manfred said during a previously scheduled visit to Fenway Park. “To assume that that investigation is going to produce a particular result with respect to the Cardinals, let alone to jump to the use of a word like ‘cyber attack,’ I just think that we don’t know that those are the facts yet.
“There is an ongoing investigation. We’ve been fully cooperative. Obviously, any allegation like this, no matter how serious it turns out to be, is of great concern to us. But it’s just too early to speculate on what the facts are going to turn out to be and what action — if any — is necessary.”
The investigation, which a New York Times report brought to light Tuesday, is being conducted with the cooperation, but not the direct involvement, of MLB, Manfred said.
“We do, in fact, have forensic experts in the commissioner’s office, (but) they have not been involved,” the commissioner said. “This is a federal investigation, not a baseball investigation.”
Manfred, who is in his second season as commissioner but has worked in MLB’s executive offices for nearly two decades, said he cannot recall a similar instance of a team allegedly stealing proprietary information from another. He added that while the league makes computer security resources available to its member clubs, teams are not compelled to utilize them.
“We have a technology company that quite literally is the envy of companies throughout America, not just sports enterprises,” Manfred said. “And we routinely make the resources of MLB Advanced Media available to clubs to make sure that they have the type of security arrangements that are necessary. At the end of the day, however, each club — it’s an individual, local undertaking as to what the security measures are.”
Thumbnail photo via Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports Images
