ST. LOUIS — Some cybersecurity experts believe professional sports teams have hacked rivals in the past without getting caught.

The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the crown jewel franchises in baseball, now stand accused.

Federal law enforcement authorities are investigating whether the Cardinals illegally accessed a computer database of the Houston Astros. The aim was obtaining information from a front office headed by a former top aide who helped transform St. Louis’ scouting operation to a sabermetrics-based system, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Major League Baseball, law enforcement officials and the two teams were not disclosing details of the investigation. The New York Times first reported that the FBI and Justice Department were investigating whether Cardinals front-office officials were behind the effort to steal information from the Astros’ database, called Ground Control.

“It would be irresponsible to assume that this is the first time an incident like this has occurred — more likely, it’s just the first time it’s been uncovered,” said Craig Newman, chairman of the privacy and data security practice of the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

Alexander Southwell, now a privacy and cybersecurity expert for the law firm Gibson Dunn, said that if the allegation is true, the employee or employees responsible will likely face federal prison time — perhaps up to five years.

“Major League Baseball has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Houston Astros’ baseball operations database,” MLB said in a statement. “Once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials, we will evaluate the next steps and will make decisions promptly.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred said subpoenas have been issued.

“There are legal problems associated with federal law enforcement officials seeking cooperation from private individuals,” Manfred said. “If the federal government wants information from us they would subpoena information and that’s what they’ve done.”