Lax hack smack: Manfred's punishment lets Cardinals off easy in scandal

Baseball officially entered a new era Monday when it gave a lifetime ban to a computer hacker. To the rogues gallery of the permanently ineligible that includes the eight Black Sox who threw the 1919 World Series, and Benny Kauff, who was thrown out in 1920 for selling stolen cars, and Pete Rose, who was banned for betting on baseball, Commissioner Rob Manfred consigned Chris Correa, the former St. Louis Cardinals scouting director who hacked into the Houston Astros database.

Correa’s ban is largely symbolic. He is serving a 46-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty in January 2016 to five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. No team would give him a job…