By Fitzgerald Cecilio

Popular social media site Facebook alleged that a rogue employee of Major League Baseball was behind the hacking of pages of several teams and the posting of offensive and hilarious comments.

"Several Pages made unauthorized posts as a result of actions from a single rogue administrator of these Pages," Facebook said in a statement. "Our team responded quickly and worked with our partners to eliminate the spam caused by this attack. This was a unique, isolated incident and we are always working to improve our systems to better protect our users and their data."

Sports blog website Deadspin said the employee, which it declined to name, meant the action as a protest against low wages.

"MLBAM runs all the teams' web pages, Facebook pages, and, presumably, Twitter feeds. That's a lot of responsibility - and power - put in the hands of people who apparently aren't being paid very much," Deadspin wrote.

Deadspin reported the rogue employee himself took down the post.

Hacking victims include the San Francisco Giants, Miami Marlins, Chicago White Sox, San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and Chicago Clubs.

The hacker left a message on the Yankees' page that read: "We regret to inform our fans that Derek Jeter will miss the rest of the season with sexual reassignment surgery. He promises to come back stronger than ever in 2012 as Minnie Mantlez."

The Marlins' page was also hacked and had a posting that read: "Just a reminder tonight is FREE PITBULL NIGHT at Marlins Park. The first 10,000 fans ages 18 and under will receive a free rescued fighting Pitbull courtesy of the Dade County Animal Rescue League."

"For a brief moment today, a few MLB Club Facebook accounts were hacked, and inappropriate material was briefly on display from those Clubs' pages on Facebook," MLB said in a statement following the hacking incident.

MLB said it is cooperating with Facebook and appropriate legal authorities to determine the circumstances surrounding the situation.

 

 

Rogue Employee Hacked MLB Team Facebook Pages