Last September, as you might remember, MLB had some issues with the Ballpark app being hacked. A number of people lost tickets as a result, though most were able to recover them. I wrote about this at the time and added:
MLB didn’t ask me, but if they did I would also give them this advice: They should enable two-factor authentication for the MLB Ballpark app (and perhaps also for MLB.com accounts in general). For season-ticket holders like me, there can be thousands of dollars worth of tickets in the app.
Using 2FA would put another layer of protection for fans who have purchased those tickets, whether season-ticket holders or any others who have purchased tickets.
Yesterday, I received an updated credit card for one of my accounts, as my existing card was set to expire soon. As a result, I had to go in and update the new expiration date on quite a number of my accounts where I use this card.
When I got to my MLB.com account, I found I had been logged out. Okay, no problem. When I logged in, the site asked me to have a code sent to my phone. Aha! Two-factor authentication! I was able to do this with no problem at all.
A while back, I became a beta tester for the Ballpark app. Just about the time I was doing all of this, I received a link to a new beta version of the app. Just as had been the case for MLB’s website, the app asked for a code to be sent to my phone to log in. It worked perfectly.
So MLB took my advice, or figured it out on their own, but they are going to be adding 2-factor authentication for the Ballpark app for 2026. Obviously, this is a good time to do this sort of testing, as we are more than two months from the first Spring Training games. Incidentally, this testing is the likely reason that Cubs Spring Training tickets have not yet been delivered to the app if you bought them when they went on sale last week.
This is all very good news and kudos to Major League Baseball to make this move to protect tickets and payment methods for MLB ticket buyers. Well done, MLB.
