By Chris Brown – STL Baseball Today

Despite a July 3 report from CNN stating that the federal investigation into the Cardinals employees’ alleged illegal access of the Houston Astros database had concluded and was simply awaiting action by the local U.S. attorney’s office in Houston, MLB Commissoner Rob Manfred told members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold, on Tuesday that he doesn’t expect the investigation to conclude in the near future.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a next-few-days resolution,” Manfred said. “I think the investigation is ongoing, and I’m not going to say more than that.”

In addition to the federal investigation, the Cardinals are also running their own internal investigation. Major League Baseball will begin their own investigation to determine what punishments may be handed down by the commissioner’s office once the federal investigation concludes.

“With respect to this incident you have to begin with the understanding that this is not our investigation,” Manfred told reporters. “The investigation is being conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney. We have regular contact with them in terms of progress, when they expect to be finished, those sorts of things. But they are not sharing with us all of the information they have from their investigation. That simply would not be appropriate for them to do.”

The commissioner also said that Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt and Astros owner Jim Crane have been very cooperative thus far throughout the process.

“Both owners have been really fantastic in terms of cooperation, their relationship with each other. Nobody – nobody – in the game is interested in this kind of activity. And there is no issue between the two clubs.”

Read more about what else Manfred had to say in Goold’s article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

[Related: Report: F.B.I. investigation into Astros security breach complete, charges recommended against Cardinals employee(s), Complete Coverage of the Astros Hacking Investigation]

 

Feature image used under Creative Commons by Arturo Pardavila III. No changes made. Image license.