Hunt and Peck: Special F.B.I. Investigation Edition

As everyone is aware, the Cardinals were involved in a scandalous scandal. This is a very serious story that will ultimately lead to someone doing serious jail time for a federal crime, most likely. That does not mean it is not the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. It just has so many levels of absurdity.

Level I:

The Cardinals are involved. This fact alone is enough to break the Internet.

Level II:

There was a serious, go to federal-prison-for-a-long-time crime committed, all for... baseball?

Level III:

Except it seemingly was not even about baseball! It is looking incredibly likely that this crime was committed by someone with an ax to grind over some perceived or maybe even real slight.

Level IV:

Oh yeah, and the target of the revenge? The general manager of the Astros, Jeff Luhnow who used to work for the Cardinals from 2003 to 2011.

Level V:

And how exactly was the revenge exacted? Oh just your standard, run-of-the-mill corporate espionage. Someone hacked into the Astros supercomputer and leaked a bunch of stuff from it.

Level VI:

And by hack, I really mean they just kind of guessed the password.

Level VII:

And why was all this revenge necessary? That we do not yet know, but if is anything short of a spurned ex-lover, frankly, I will be disappointed.

Because this story is like, the weirdest thing ever, it our duty to recognize the weirdness (while also understanding that is still very serious, of course). Here is a collection of memes and tweets from around the web.

You get to win the 2005 NLCS, we get access to your proprietary data. That's just standard business. #stlcards

— alex fritz (@boxcar_fritz) June 16, 2015