The Real Tony Plush

This has to be a first for the Brewers.

Nyjer Morgan, Brewers outfielder, has an alter ego, "Tony Plush."

The team is celebrating "Tony Plush" on September 9th.

Nyjer Morgan and his alter ego “Tony Plush” have become fan favorites with Milwaukee Brewers fans in the outfielder’s first season with the Crew. Now, the Brewers are adding Tony Plush Rally Towels to its promotional calendar.



The rally towels will be given away to the first 30,000 fans at the game on Friday, September 9 vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.

The towels are sponsored by RedPrairie Corporation, a global supply chain and retail technology provider.

So who is "Tony Plush"?

Is he a gentleman?

Jason Albert, Slate, gives some insight.

The Milwaukee Brewers' trade for Nyjer Morgan this March was the kind of move that moves no one. Morgan had been a decent player in Pittsburgh and Washington, but he was mostly known for his bizarre and petulant on-field behavior—throwing a ball at a fan, instigating a brawl, and other assorted jackassery. What didn't make the wire was that this deal was a two-for-one. Along with Nyjer Morgan, the Brewers were acquiring the outfielder's alter ego, Tony Plush. According to a story in the Washington Post, this was Morgan's "gentleman's name." I didn't know what this meant exactly, and I couldn't decide whether this guy was a free spirit or just insane. Could anyone possibly be that much of a dick?

In the succeeding weeks, I spent hours searching for Plush intel. I was consumed by baseball thoughts in a way I hadn't been since I was 10, a time when mastering Ben Oglivie's batting stance qualified as an afternoon well spent. After finding mostly dead ends, I decided to explore my preoccupation in the only place that made sense. On the day of the Brewers' home opener, I pulled a headshot off Google Images and wrote a bio for @Tony_Plush: "The gentleman alter ego of the Milwaukee Brewers' Nyjer Morgan." I didn't open this Twitter account to jock-sniff or to fool anyone into thinking I was Morgan. It was merely a new way to waste time.

As Plush, I tweeted at my friends. I commented on the game. I boasted and bragged: The Braves are scared to hit it at me. Plush is both a gentleman and a vacuum. In the sixth inning, I checked the feed. I had retweets and messages from writers in the press box. I puffed my feathers and cock-strutted around the room. I became bolder, tweeting back and correcting the usage of Morgan's name: I prefer "Tony Plush." Thank you for your support.

That night, my pulse thumped. I started thinking about how to take a bicycle pump to Tony Plush's withered husk. I'd intended the account to be a one-game thing, but it couldn't end now, not with this momentum. Plush needed rules. He would speak only in third-person, and never use contractions. He would be a literate and worldly dandy. His syntactic quirks would lean towards the ornate. And he'd love baseball so much it would make his knees weak. He'd be Henry James toting a Louisville Slugger. I also tagged one tweet with the word #Plushdamentals. This would soon become Plush's magical incantation: a mantra soaked in linseed oil, carefully tucked under the mattress each night, and pulled out the next day.

In the following days, Tony Plush tweeted in-game one-liners about running fast and hitting stand-up triples. Morgan wasn't playing all that much, so Plush also wrote about being a stranger in a strange land—how he used his off-days to locate a snooker club, iron his pocket squares, and figure out ways to get Brewers manager Ron Roenicke to pencil him into the lineup.

Buzz around the account grew, as did the fans' ardor for Morgan himself. Wisconsinites adore athletes with blue in their collar. Get dirty, barrel-roll a few catchers, and you will be loved. After a week, Tony Plush had more than 1,000 followers. ESPN.com's Jayson Stark started including Plush's tweets in his column. A graphic artist from Milwaukee contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in selling Plushdamentals T-shirts.

...Then, on May 17, Nyjer Morgan joined Twitter as @TheRealTPlush.

Watz good Plush Nation,we will take da private off so I can finally get to tha world of Plusha Maniacs!!!!Stay tuned....

Almost immediately, the angry tweets began to roll in. Some followers—those who weren't in on the joke—were upset at being "tricked." They had no use for my Plush anymore. Now they could interact with Nyjer Morgan, the real Tony Plush. With sagging shoulders, I retweeted his welcome message. I was finished.

After stewing for a couple of hours, resentment crept in and replaced the dejection. Morgan's Plush was a pretender, a fraud. Tony Plush would never change his S's to Z's. This was another Plush altogether, one who did not live up the gentlemanly standards I'd so carefully laid out. Not to mention, in the Internet's land grab, I'd staked my claim first. I'd invested far too many hours. Where was his chivalry?

So the "gentleman" Plush is a fraud.

Follow the REAL TPlush on Twitter.

Nyjer Morgan - T Dot

@TheRealTPlush Here, There, Everywhere

Official Twitter page of Nyjer Morgan, BrewCrew Outfielder #2 aka.. TonyPlush, Mr.Eezzy Brezzy, Mr.Gotta B Startin Somthin, Mr.Professional

http://www.brewers.com

This is Nyjer Morgan's official Twitter page.

Obviously, the towel's design doesn't fit the gentleman Plush.

It has an edgy, grafitti vibe that's not really consistent with that Plush tone.

Something a bit more refined, perhaps a design making a simple yet elegant statement would have been more appropriate for a gentleman, like a tasteful monogram.

However, looking at what the real Tony Plush has to say, I guess the street design is fitting.

Not sure how family-friendly the towel's design is. I don't like it. Kind of weird that the Brewers are honoring Tony Plush at all.

Maybe the team should be called the "Brewerz," yo.


___________________

Nyjer Morgan explains Tony Plush to Steve "The Homer" True:

That's my better half, I think. Right now, you're talking to Mr. Nyjer Morgan, but basically on the field everyone sees Tony Plush, a hard-working individual that loves to play and leave it all out on the field. ... It was basically me and my friends back home, around the age of 19 or 20, we called ourselves the Rat Pack. It was three of us. Basically, my friends gave me the name Tony Plush, and basically I kind of self-entitled my own name. I don't think a lot of people are self-entitled, but I guess I'm a strange individual. ... That's not a made-up name! You're talking to him, man!