Wuzzy Fuzzy

I was watching a commercial, although I usually have no interest in them, but this however, was about a golfer I once knew. Fuzzy was a member of our golf staff and our company had quite a few golfers that wore our product--you know, the shirts with the little penguin embroidery on the chest. Our shirts were very popular and once upon a time we sold more of those shirts than our 3 nearest competitors combined. However, returning to Fuzzy: back in about 1979 he won the U.S.Open- a very honored tournament which carried a lot of prestige for the winner. As he was a member of the staff, it was my job to give him $5000 bonus and to send him a new contract. I upgraded his present one from about $2500 to a new $5000. I had begun to have some concerns about why I had not received a reply regarding the new contract when I had a call come in from a person who introduced himself as Fuzzy's agent. I thought I was now about to put that new contract to bed. Wrong! I was advised that Fuzzy had a new offer from a "better" company that wanted to sign him for a lot more money. Question? Was I willing to let our golfer out of his contract so he could sign with a different company? I mulled this over while the agent droned on about new, better opportunities and I'm. not going to stand in his way am I? I said in reply "I'm not sure I would look at this change as being beneficial to a company that had carried him at a minimal gaurantee for a few years and now was a looking to get a return on our investment. This was the first time I had run into an agent and was in new waters. The discussion continued with him threatening to have his client wear another company's logo and me saying then we would have grounds to take him to court for violating his contract with us. The agent then said " Well, I guess he will just not wear your clothing anymore".To which I quickly replied. Well I guess he won't get any bonus from us if he wins for this next season. Had him again didn't I?! Anyway,it went back and forth until he hung up angry that Fuzzy was signed for the following year as well as the one coming up. I would think that any agent should read the contracts of the persons represented by him, don't you? To make a long story short the discussions continued with him trying to get me to let Fuzzy out of the current contract. I finally became resigned to the fact we would lose a golfer and told him, "If Fuzzy wants to send us a check for $10,00 I'll tear up his contract". And that is not the end of the story. A few weeks later I had come to Phoenix to view other potential golfers that would make good members of our staff and I am at the practise greens early one morning and there is only one golfer practising his putting and of course, it is Fuzzy. I had never met him before and thought "Oh well, I should go and say hello". Not knowing what he would say to me I took a bold approach and said "Fuzzy, we have never met before but I'm the guy that cost you $10,000" He looked at me suspiciously and I followed up my remark with "I'm with Munsignwear and I just let you off the hook so you can sign elsewhere" He stuck out his hand and said "Hell, Jim thats business. I'm glad to know you". A nice guy right!! The sad thing is that whoever the other "better" company is, they never signed Fuzzy to any contract and he was not a member of any of the company staffs of which I'm familiar. I wonder if that agent is still connected with any golfers?