Spying
Spying is part of the game of baseball. This link highlights a kind of spying that is often detectable by the opposition, and thus subject to immediate retribution:
http://bfc.sfsu.edu/cgi-bin/unwritten.pl?Never_steal_the_catcher_signs._-_Baseball
I'd also point out that while teams do spend a lot of money, millions even, in scouting and recording their findings, the value of a player database to a team that already has a player database, is much lower. The fact that the person's employer was able to escape penalty even suggests that he did it for a lark. If we lived in a world where computer crime were routinely caught and punished, this man might have received a different sentence, such as a $50,000 fine. It's a today rendition of the "Bloody Code".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
