Cardinal-Gate

The media is having fun bashing the midwestern Yankees (otherwise known as the St. Louis Cardinal baseball team) over the alleged hacking scandal announced by the New York Times today.  Evidently someone used former Cardinal exec Jeff Luhnow's old STL passwords and entered the Astro's database. 

Details are still sketchy, but the Cards are already being mentioned in the same breath as the Patriots, Blacksox, Pete Rose and various corporate cheaters.  And that's just by the WaPo.  On the positive side, the team may actually get some significant TV time on ESPN now. 

But you might be asking, is there any politics here?   Well, maybe!   It just so happens the Cardinals principle owner is a guy named Bill DeWitt, who also happens to be a longtime buddy of the Bush family.  Conversely, the principle owner of the Stro's is Jim Crane, a former St. Louisan who made his fortune in Texas.  He also seems to be pretty chummy with ....the president:

For the second time in three years, Astros owner Jim Crane golfed with President Barack Obama on Sunday at Crane’s Floridian National Golf Course. Astros counsel Giles Kibbe confirmed the golf outing to the Houston Chronicle on Sunday afternoon.

The outing was first reported by the Associated Press, which noted that Celtics minority owner Glenn Hutchins and Milton Carroll joined the foursome with Obama and Crane.

But not just golf. Crane and one of the other Astro owners, trial lawyer John Eddie Williams (famous from Big Tobacco settlements) had a pretty nice fundraiser for the preezy earlier this year...

That's what comes with the territory when you host a sitting President of the United States for an intimate fundraiser. And that security detail, along with 55 deep-pocketed Democrats and President Barack Obama, turned the Williams home into security central on Wednesday night.

While guests such as Astros owner Jim Crane, Mayor Annise Parker and former Gov. Mark White mingled over cocktails, POTUS arrived via the underground garage, was welcomed by the Williamses and was whisked upstairs to the servants quarters where he dined privately with staff and security.

Wonder if any of them were at the "private party" at the White House this past weekend?!  Wonder if someone leaked this to the Times on the day after Jeb Bush announced for president, just for fun?   Ok, ok, it's all innuendo by association.  Probably just a weird coincidence on the politics, as always.

As to the baseball side, one could say the Cardinals are a fixture of the Midwest, drawing millions to Busch Stadium from across the central US region.  They have a long tradition of winning, surpassed only by the Yankees, but they have what the Yankees don't-- an image of Midwestern stand-up values.  Any kind of cheating scandal would not only do irreparable harm to the franchise but likely to the city of St. Louis as well due to all the outside money that pours in from the games.  We'll have to see who take the perp walks.