Selig on how McCourt bought Dodgers: 'There was nobody else'

The baseball commissioner didn't get into the team's precarious payroll situation during a radio interview this morning with Mike Lupica, other than to say, "We are monitoring the situation very, very very closely." But he did explain how L.A. got stuck with McCourt in the first place.

"There's a lot of history here, which a lot of people don't seem to understand. There were two other bidders. Fox was anxious to get rid of the team. They were all really anxious, [particularly News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch]. I'll tell you what happened. There were a couple of groups, one group led by Dave Checketts and another group. And for whatever reason, [Checketts wasn't] around at the end. So Fox sold the club to the McCourts and presented them to us. So this idea that we ought to examine ourselves -- there was nobody else. We have a long relationship with Fox. There were no other bidders."

Of course he didn't have to sign off on the sale (sounds like there was no love lost with McCourt from the start), but apparently Fox really wanted to have this happen. Selig also said the Dodger mess could not be compared with the financial troubles of the Mets, who are looking for a minority investment. "To compare one situation to the other is factually incorrect. I've talked to [Mets owner Fred Wilpon] a lot about it, and I feel very comfortable that we're gonna have a very reasoned economic solution to that problem as opposed to the other." The two cases are also different because Selig happens to be long-time friends with Wilpon. Listen to the Selig interview and then listen to McCourt's delusions and I think it'll be pretty clear who is running this show.