*Baseball turns down McCourt's proposed deal with Fox

This is the long-term TV agreement that Dodger owner Frank McCourt had been counting on to bail him out of his huge debt loads. And in spite of Commissioner Bud Selig's decision to appoint a monitor to oversee the club, McCourt said he wasn't going anywhere. "Nobody handed the Dodgers to me. Nobody is going to take them away," he said at a news conference in NY. He called Selig's decision "fundamentally wrong," though I haven't seen anything about a possible legal challenge. Soon after McCourt's comments, the monitor, Tom Schieffer, met with reporters, saying that he was here "to hopefully get the franchise back on its feet." (LAT, USA Today)

*More on Schieffer: Not very illuminating. He didn't say how his monitoring would work or what role he would play in the day-to-day operations. He wasn't even sure where his offices would be, other than to hope that they would be somewhere at Dodger Stadium. He has not spoken to McCourt. "I hope there won't be friction," Schieffer said, adding that he would have an open mind when dealing with the Dodger owner. And there's no deadline on his monitoring activities. Sounds like this might last a while.

From MarketWatch:

On Wednesday, McCourt said that MLB executives informed him that Commissioner Bud Selig's decision to nix his proposed television-rights deal with Fox was based on concerns about the divorce, as well as the league's ongoing investigation into the team's financial operations. McCourt, sitting beside his son, also said he feels it's unfair for the league to assert control over his property based on turmoil in his personal life, which he described as "horrible." He pointedly noted that despite his request, Selig did not attend his meeting with league executives. "I suspect that Commissioner Selig calls the other 29 owners back when they call," he quipped. "I thought I enjoyed a decent relationship with Bud."

Here's McCourt speaking outside MLB offices in NY (note Dodger vice chairman Steve Soboroff in the background).

Edited post