Yankees ALCS Champions Merch Visible On MLB.com Before Game Six

ALCS Champions Merchandise Offered Hours Before Start Of Game 6 Yesterday

Beta-mode online shopping pages from MLB.com showing AL Champions merchandise for both the Yankees and Angels were visible yesterday afternoon, several hours before Game 6 of the ALCS started, following a user breach into a page staging area created by MLBAM. Pages for specific Yankees and Angels championship merchandise said orders would not be processed unless the team won the league title, but those pages very quickly made the rounds of the blogosphere and baseball media. Prior to first pitch of last night's game, the links for the early-appearing merchandise were then disabled, showing just celebratory merchandise for the NLCS-winning Phillies until after the Yankees' victory, when sales for Yankees title gear officially commenced (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal). MLB VP/PR Pat Courtney said that Web pages like those for the Yankees and Angels "are prepared in advance and are not linked to anywhere on MLB.com until after the LCS is over." However, he said that a "hacker obtained the link to the Yankees page on Sunday and circulated it around the web" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 10/26).