A more recent - and serious - case of spying has seen the FBI investigate officials from the St Louis Cardinals baseball club for allegedly hacking the internal network of the Houston Astros to steal closely guarded information about players.
The New York Times reported in June that FBI and State Department officials were investigating what appeared to be the first known case of corporate espionage in which a professional sports team hacked the network of another team. Investigators believed that Cardinals personnel had examined the master list of passwords used by a former executive who had joined the Astros to gain access to their fierce rivals' network - a tactic common with cyber criminals.
ALL THE THINGS HE SAID
Ireland assistant coach Les Kiss (who for some reason conjures memories of 'schoolgirl' Russian pop duo T.a.t.u.) reached for the great book of rugby cliches in describing the threat posed by Romania ahead of the blockbuster pool D showdown.
"Our intention is to play with ball in hand but if we don't look after ball in the breakdown they can hurt you," the tournament's official website quoted Kiss as saying. "They are very robust, very tenacious. We must make sure we don't put the horse before the cart."
IRISH AYES
Having not put the horse before the cart (even while fielding their B team) Ireland duly hammered Romania 44-10 - a result that apparently makes them a genuine title threat. Ireland are a "complete side" with the game to be World Cup winners, Romania's Welsh coach Lynn Howells said. "It's a possibility, I don't see any reason why not," Howells told Reuters when asked if Ireland could be world champions. Ireland has never been beyond the quarter-finals and boasts a long, inglorious rugby history that includes never having beaten potential quarter-final opponent New Zealand. But they have beaten Canada and Romania convincingly so, yeah, why not?
APOLOGISE AND WITHDRAW
The Herald's well-established ability to upset the Welsh has again come to the fore. Samuel Hilling has written asking sports editor-at-large Dylan Cleaver to apologise to Wales after daring to place them below Scotland in his WRC power rankings.
"Your basis to rank Scotland higher than Wales and even England shows that once you decided who was top you picked the rest of the teams out of a hat," writes an infuriated Mr Hilling. Cleaver responded by pointing his rankings were compiled using complex algorithmic methodology used only by the Deep Blue chess computer and Power Rankings and that "Scotland had more chance of making the quarter-finals than either Wales or England, but everyone is entitled to their own sense of logic."
