ny of the Cardinals intellectual property or information f | Forum

It all began in the magical world of Neopets. Larry Bird Jersey .I made it up when I was 6 or 7 on Neopets, Eugene Pobelter Park told me about the selection of his unique ID. Remember that?Although Im a bit older than the 19-year-old starting mid laner for Immortals, Id also taken part in the online pet community during my youth. Now, probably a decade later, our colorful creatures probably live in electronic purgatory, wondering what had happened to their handlers.Actually, my first ID was like Pipsqueak7, he admitted. But that got banned because me and my sister would play on the same computer, and I think they thought we were account sharing. Anyway, my new account name was Pobelt because I thought it sounded cool, and that eventually became Pobelter when I played MapleStory. [I] really [messed] up the skill allocation on my main character Pobelt. So I started a new one named Pobelter.Like many pro-gamers, Parks fascination with video games began at an early age. He started out playing on the Nintendo 64 when he was around the age of 5 until his mother accidentally cleaned out the system incorrectly and broke it. From there, he moved onto playing PlayStation games like Frogger before eventually turning to educational games on the computer that started his love for PC gaming.I spent most of my time playing WarCraft III and MapleStory in middle school, Park said. As a 13-year-old with no money whose parents didnt want him to be playing video games all the time, I couldnt afford to buy games, so I ended up starting WarCraft III somehow. I downloaded it illegally -- sorry Blizzard -- and I played on this bootleg European private server because I didnt have the legit CD key. I [also] played Dota, and I thought Dota was pretty fun, but at the same time, I was playing on 300 ping and people were flaming me in Turkish [and] Portuguese, so I ended up hearing about this so-called Dota clone called League of Legends entering closed beta.And thats how one of the best North American mid laners of all time came to be. The adolescent Park turned to a game considered to be a tweaked version of the same genre. Since starting as one of the first people to test the game in the closed beta, Park has gone from an unknown playing in his childhood bedroom to playing in front of thousands on the North American League Championship Series stage.I just tried to keep it pretty low-key, he told me when I asked how he dealt with being a popular face in the League community since his early days of high school. [I] didnt like it when random people would come up to me at school and go, Yo, youre Pobelter, because I didnt [enjoy] that. It made me feel kind of uncomfortable.Luckily for Park, most people at his self-described pretty nerdy school didnt make a big deal about it and thought it was cool he was a mini-celebrity in the world of competitive gaming. In terms of the schoolwork, Park had little to no issues passing through his school curriculum and doing well on his SAT scores. He was only held back from being at the top of his class due to the endless hours spent in League of Legends.It probably would have been a lot tougher of a decision between playing in LCS and going to college right away if Id gotten in anywhere I really wanted to go, Park said. But I only got accepted into my backup schools so I [said], I guess Ill try [LCS] out and see how it goes. Anyway, school was taking its toll on me, so I might as well take some time off and explore because -- I did some research -- people who take time off go back to college and have a really refreshed mindset and dont get burnt out. So I thought itd be a good idea, and my parents supported me.Parks ascent from semi-normal high schooler to professional gaming star wasnt a rapid one. His first few teams and seasons in the NA LCS were rocky ones. On teams that were good enough to stay in the league but not strong enough to actually compete for a title, Park kept the reputation of a youngster ready to have a breakout season but never getting that breakthrough moment. Instead, he battled through relegations, known for his finesse to wiggle out of difficult situations and help his squads keep their place in the premier league.My parents were a bit skeptical at first, he said. I remember telling them I had to fly out to Raleigh, North Carolina, for my first LAN event at [Major League Gaming] Raleigh in 2011 or 2012. They were just [like], What the hell? and thought I was going to get kidnapped. But I showed them this was all legit. A part of the game I play. Theres a tournament, and hopefully Im not going to die and get my organs harvested. Luckily I didnt, and Im here today.No, Park didnt get kidnapped and didnt get his organs harvested at Raleigh. However, it wasnt until he finally was relegated from the league on Winterfox in the spring of 2015 where he finally caught his first big break. As his struggling team was pushed down into the minor leagues, Park left the organization and signed with the established Counter Logic Gaming for the 2015 summer season.Itd definitely have to be winning LCS with CLG at Madison Square Garden, said Park, describing the memory that has stuck out to him the most throughout his lengthy career. After joining the team at the start of the summer split, Counter Logic turned its identity around by winning its first LCS championship with Park as the starter in the mid lane.That just felt...awesome, he said. Probably the best Ive felt in my life.For how successful he felt on the stage, Park was still struggling to gain full acceptance from his parents. It wasnt until he left CLG following the summer split to join the rookie organization Immortals that his parents started to look at competitive gaming as more than just a bit of exploration.It didnt happen until fairly recently, he told me. For the first year of my career -- even on Winterfox and CLG -- I wasnt making that much. For my first year on EG, I was making the league minimum, he said. Even on CLG and Winterfox, I wasnt making that much more. But this time around on Immortals, I think I have a pretty good salary. It feels really stable, so I think my parents are going to support me as long as I want to keep going. Whereas before, they would have been like, Maybe you should go back to school soon.On Immortals, Park is transitioning into the role of reliable veteran rather than the pesky, upcoming rookie he has been seen as. Park is rectifying his exclusion last split by being one of the most impactful players in this summers regular season. After winning a title two splits ago and finishing third in the spring, another championship would give him one of the best resumes for a North American-born player in the LCS history.My plan has always been to go back to school, get a degree and see what happens from there, he said. But recently, esports has been growing so much, and there seems to be a lot of opportunities outside [playing]. Basically, its hard to gauge until that point actually happens.Pipsqueak7, a kid nursing his online animals on Neopets, to Pobelt on MapleStory, to Pobelter, the pro-gaming star.Wow, he said, trying to find the right words to say to the fans that have followed him since he was an amateur high school player. Just thanks for supporting me. I remember streaming on own3d.tv back in 2012, and Id get 60 viewers. I was like, Wow, thats 60 people watching me. Thats a lot of people! And its just crazy to see how everything has shaken out. John Havlicek Jersey . There was no hesitation from the 40th-ranked Pospisil, from Vernon, B.C., who admitted that he cut back on his training sessions over the last few days to conserve energy as the long ATP season finishes next week at the Paris Masters. Red Auerbach Celtics Jersey .com) - The Montreal Canadiens will try to halt their longest losing streak of the season when they host the struggling New York Islanders in tonights clash at the Bell Centre. http://www.celticssale.com/kids-dennis-johnson-celtics-jersey/ . PETERSBURG, Fla. HOUSTON -- A federal judge sentenced the former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals to nearly four years in prison Monday for hacking the Houston Astros player-personnel database and email system in an unusual case of high-tech cheating involving two Major League Baseball clubs.Christopher Correa had pleaded guilty in January to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer from 2013 to at least 2014, the same year he was promoted to director of baseball development in St. Louis. He was fired last summer and now faces 46 months behind bars and a court order to pay $279,038 in restitution. He had faced up to five years in prison on each count.Correa read a letter in court before he was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes and he said he was overwhelmed with remorse and regret for my actions.I violated my values and it was wrong ... I behaved shamefully, he said. The whole episode represents the worst thing Ive done in my life by far.Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. last year had blamed the hack on roguish behavior by a handful of individuals. No one else was charged.MLB could discipline the Cardinals, possibly with a fine or a loss of draft picks, but has said only that it looked forward to getting details on the case from federal authorities.The data breach was reported in June 2014 when Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow told reporters the team had been the victim of hackers who accessed servers and proceeded to publish online months of internal trade talks. Luhnow had previously worked for the Cardinals.Federal prosecutors say the hacking cost the Astros about $1.7 million, taking into account how Correa used the Astros data to draft players.The FBI said Correa was able to gain access using a password similar to that used by a Cardinals employee who had to turn over his Cardinals-owned laptop to Correa along with the lapptops password when he was leaving for a job with the Astros in 2011. Reggie Lewis Celtics Jersey. . The employee was not identified, though Luhnow left St. Louis for Houston in December of that year to become general manager.Prosecutors have said that Correa in 2013 improperly downloaded a file of the Astros scouting list of every eligible player for that years draft. They say he also improperly viewed notes of trade discussions as well as a page that listed information such as potential bonus details, statistics and notes on recent performances and injuries by team prospects.The Astros rely heavily on sabermetrics in their evaluation of players and use a database called Ground Control to house proprietary information.Authorities say that after the Astros took security precautions involving Ground Control following a Houston Chronicle story about the database, Correa was still able to get into it. Authorities say he hacked the email system and was able to view 118 pages of confidential information, including notes of trade discussions, player evaluations and a 2014 team draft board that had not yet been completed.Luhnow was a key figure in the Cardinals own database, called Redbird. At least one former Cardinals employee -- Sig Mejdal, a former NASA employee and analytics expert -- had joined Luhnow in Houston.Luhnow has not commented in detail about the case, although he has denied using any of the Cardinals intellectual property or information from Redbird to create Houstons database.The Cardinals are among baseballs most successful franchises. Only the New York Yankees have more World Series titles than the 11 won by St. Louis. The Astros and Cardinals were rivals in the National League Central until Houston moved to the American League in 2013. ' ' '