ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Some cybersecurity experts believe professional sports teams have hacked rivals in the past without getting caught.The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the crown jewel franchises in baseball, now stand accused.Federal law enforcement authorities are investigating whether the Cardinals illegally accessed a computer database of the Houston Astros. The aim was obtaining information from a front office headed by a former top aide who helped transform St. Louis' scouting operation to a sabermetrics-based system, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Tuesday.The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Major League Baseball, law enforcement officials and the two teams were not disclosing details of the investigation. The New York Times first reported that the FBI and Justice Department were investigating whether Cardinals front-office officials were behind the effort to steal information from the Astros' database, called Ground Control.''It would be irresponsible to assume that this is the first time an incident like this has occurred - more likely, it's just the first time it's been uncovered,'' said Craig Newman, chairman of the privacy and data security practice of the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.Alexander Southwell, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and now a privacy and cybersecurity expert for the law firm Gibson Dunn, said that if the allegation is true, the employee or employees responsible will likely face federal prison time - perhaps up to five years.The Cardinals are among baseball's most successful franchises on and off the field. Only the New York Yankees have won more World Series titles than the 11 won by St. Louis, which is among the best-drawing teams in all of sports, with annual attendance topping 3 million every year since 2003.The Astros and Cardinals were rivals in the National League Central until Houston moved to the American League in 2013. Jeff Luhnow headed the Cardinals scouting and player development department before being hired as Astros general manager in December 2011, and he has helped transform the AL Central leaders from sad sack to contender.It wasn't immediately clear how many Cardinals employees were under investigation, or whether top front office officials were aware of the activities.''Then there's the question of who did it?'' Manfred told reporters in Boston. ''Who knew about it? Is the organization responsible? Is the individual responsible? There's a whole set of issues that are needed to be sorted through.''Manfred said MLB's forensics experts were not involved in the case, adding, ''This is a federal investigation, not a baseball investigation.''
