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Houston Astros 'hack' row: St Louis Cardinals fire their chief scout

Baseball club boots out director as details on database compromise surface

The St Louis Cardinals baseball team has sacked its director of scouting over the alleged unauthorized access of a rival team's computer database.

The Major League Baseball team said on Thursday that Chris Correa was booted out of the team after he apparently admitted to logging into systems owned by the Houston Astros.

The FBI has been investigating the case; it is alleged a Houston database containing scouting information on players was illegally accessed by members of the St Louis club.

According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, citing a source with knowledge of the investigation, Correa allegedly logged into the Houston database after guessing the password.

A group of former St Louis employees had left the club, where they had set up player databases, to work for Houston, where they installed a similar set of systems. When they quit St Louis, they left behind a list of passwords for the St Louis database. It is claimed Correa took that list, and used it to access the Houston systems as it appears the employees reused the same passwords.

The FBI has not announced any charges in the case.

The investigation is said by The New York Times to center around the respective scouting databases maintained by both teams. When the executive who built the St Louis database was hired away by Houston, Cardinals scouting execs grew suspicious that confidential information was being taken along to build the Houston Astros database.

The Post-Dispatch source claimed that Correa was only checking if any stolen St Louis scouting information was on the systems. The report said that no Houston data was leaked by Correa, though portions of the database did eventually surface online.

Correa, through a lawyer, denied to the paper any illegal conduct. ®

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