Over on SideDish, Uncle Nancy has a report of Scott Murray going a little bonkers while emceeing Caesar salad competition over the weekend. Seems Murray let fly with more than a few F-bombs and then walked out of the event. Crazy stuff.
Reminds me of another time Murray had trouble with a mic. I wrote the following open letter to him in the magazine after a curious incident at the Cattle Baron’s Ball in 2004:
Dear Scott Murray,
Please stay away from the Cattle Baron’s Ball.
We love you, Scott. Really, we do. You know almost as much about sports as Dale Hansen, and your hair is always perfect. But there’s no easy way to say this. You have a problem. An emceeing problem. And you need to get help. What you did in October at the Cattle Baron’s Ball was dreadful. Scott, you knew you weren’t the emcee that night. Yes, yes, you emceed the ball every year for a decade. But this time the Cattle Baron’s Ball didn’t even give you tickets. (You know why, and there’s no need to go into all that now. We’ll just say, “Shame on you, Scott, for not making good on your promises.” And we’ll leave it at that.)
So what did you do? You finagled your way in, and as if that weren’t bad enough, you got up on the main stage, grabbed the microphone, and hijacked the live auction. What on earth possessed you? You knew that Tracy Rowlett and Karen Borta were supposed to be the emcees. How do you think that made them feel, seeing you onstage, your hair just so? As you were introducing Jim Turner and Willie Nelson, the ball’s organizers were scrambling around, trying to figure out what you were doing and how to get the mic out of your hands. It was awful.
Listen, when you “resigned” last year as NBC Channel 5’s sports director and you cried on the air, we all knew it was going to be tough for you to step out of the limelight. You used to brag about making upward of 600 appearances a year. But now you work for a bank, Scott. A bank. It’s time to move on. No more emceeing. Please. Before someone gets hurt.
Again, we still love you and always will. But you can’t get better until you admit that you have a problem.
Best wishes,
TIM ROGERS
P.S. Say hi to Carole and the kids for us.
