NEW YORK -- Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon asked a federal court Wednesday to dismiss claims by his longtime partner that the team's appraisal was unfair.

Wilpon sued Nelson Doubleday last month in an effort to force him to sell him his 50 percent share based on a $391 million appraisal of the team by Robert Starkey.

In an answer to the lawsuit, Doubleday said Tuesday the commissioner's office was "in cahoots'' with Wilpon to put an artificially low value on the team. Doubleday also accused baseball commissioner Bud Selig of conspiring with the appraiser, former Arthur Andersen accountant Robert Starkey, to "manufacture phantom operating losses'' in the sport's books, allegations Wilpon and major league baseball denied.

Doubleday contended he did not know the extent of the work Starkey did for the commissioner's office and said the appraisal should be thrown out because of conflicts.

"The alleged 'conflicts' were known to Doubleday and his representatives well before Starkey's preliminary and final appraisals were issued,'' Wilpon's lawyers said in a reply to Doubleday's counterclaim.

"It was only after the results were not to the liking of Doubleday that he first claimed Starkey's appraisal should be throw out.''

Wilpon's lawyers said Doubleday adviser Dick Cummins attended an owners' meeting last Nov. 27 during which the extent of Starkey's work for baseball was discussed. The lawyers also said Doubleday had access to the minutes from a meeting last Jan. 16 that detailed Starkey's work for the commissioner's office.

Doubleday, using this year's $660 million sale of the Boston Red Sox as an example, says the Mets have a much higher value than Starkey's appraisal. He contended Starkey was trying to put low values on franchises as part of major league baseball's strategy during labor talks.

Wilpon's lawyers said the Mets' partners, 50-50 owners since 1985, agreed in June 2001 to a $400 million evaluation, with $100 million to be added if the team got a new ballpark. That deal came apart and last autumn Doubleday exercised a provision in his 1986 agreement with Wilpon that allowed him to sell his share at a price fixed by an appraiser.