E-mail fail: Yanks leak personal info of 20,000 ticket holders

Thousands of current season ticket holders for the New York Yankees got a surprise in their inbox on Monday, giving them an unexpected glimpse into the lives of their fellow fans.

Yes, someone in the Yankees front office unwittingly unleashed a spreadsheet containing the names, account numbers, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of every single current non-premium season ticket holder — 21, 466 names in all — to a select list of recipients. The spreadsheet was an attachment to an email and has since spread all over the web.

That means if you subscribe to any sort of ticket plan with the Yankees and you don't sit inside the premium moat, your personal information has now been divulged to the world.

Change your passwords now, folks.

So how did this avalanche of private numbers and addresses begin? Barry Petchesky at Deadspin has the scoop (as did Ross at NYY Stadium Insider), and there's at least one person in the Yankees front office feeling like he or she pulled a Costanza:

The release of the spreadsheet can be traced to a simple mistake by a hapless Yankees season ticket rep, one wrong click revealing the team's records to all of his contacts. Monday morning, an account executive sent an email to nearly 2,000 clients, a regular informational newsletter that they receive periodically. According to several fans who received the email, a file labeled "STL Homestand Newsletter (042511)" was attached that contained the information on all non-premium ticket holders — not just the rep's own licensees.

Posted in: E-mail fail