This is posted on the Brewers website:
T. Plush taking baseball by storm in playoffs
Morgan and his alter ego captivating fans, turning off opponents
By Adam McCalvy / MLB.com | 10/08/11
MILWAUKEE -- America, meet Tony Plush.
Depending on your outlook -- essentially, whether you'll wear Brewers blue or Cardinals red during this charged National League Championship Series -- he is either the best thing to happen to this game or the worst. The Brewers insist that if you get to know him, you'll love him. The Cards would rather not know him at all.
The measure of this distaste was best described Saturday by veteran Lance Berkman, one of baseball's all-time most affable, frank and talkative players. Asked about Plush on the eve of NLCS Game 1, Berkman went silent.
"No comment," he said.
The questioner thought Berkman was kidding. He most certainly was not.
"I really don't want to talk about him, to be honest," Berkman said.
So you have to turn to the Brewers, who have a very different view of Nyjer Jamid Morgan, aka Tony Plush, aka this postseason's version of slightly off-kilter Giants closer Brian Wilson.
That Morgan's own teammates would have an alternate outlook is not surprising at all, considering he blossomed in blue after being acquired from the Nationals four days before the season opener, batting .304 for Milwaukee and winning regular duty in center field, and then appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated. At Miller Park, fans throw up their arms in a "T," just like T. Plush does in the outfield. You can hear them when Morgan steps to the plate: "TEEEEEEEE!"
"He's brought some fun back to baseball," Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said on more than one occasion this season.
Plush is the kingpin of the myriad personalities inside Morgan's clean-shaven head. He was born years ago when Morgan and some friends became fans of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, and wanted alter egos of their own. Morgan adopted Tony Plush, a supremely confident, self-described entertainer, troublemaker and bundle of baseball energy who on Friday night "tickled" -- Plush's word -- a 10th-inning single up the middle to send the Brewers past the D-backs in the NL Division Series.
He ran around during the wild hour or so that followed wearing a S.W.A.T. team helmet -- that's his nickname for Milwaukee's offense -- that has "T. Plush" printed on the back. His nose was bleeding after being dog-piled by his teammates, and his uniform grew more stained as the celebration raged on. Plush hugged Melvin and assistant GM Gord Ash so hard you worried someone would get hurt. Then he sat quietly for a moment, Nyjer again, savoring the Brewers' biggest hit since Cecil Cooper's seventh-inning single in a decisive Game 5 of the American League Championship Series sent Milwaukee to its only World Series.
Then he was up on his feet, Nyjer Morgan transformed back into Tony Plush, dancing and celebrating through the night.
"I still don't have a real feeling of what happened last night," Morgan said Saturday. "It's a new day now, and we're ready to move on and get ready for these Birds."
With that, he laughed. Plush was back. You have to have heard it to know it, a slow, "Haaa, haaa, haaa."
Other personalities emerged as the season went on. There was Tony Gumbel, Morgan's choice for serious, studious moments in postgame interviews. There was Tony Tombstone, conjured by third baseman Casey McGehee the day the Brewers dressed as cowboys for a flight from Houston to St. Louis. There was Tony Hush, when Morgan declined to discuss a dustup with Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter a few days later.
Then there was Tony Clutch, Ryan Braun's creation after Morgan's two-run single amid a five-run rally in Game 2 of the NLDS. Tony Clutch came through again in Game 5 on Friday.
"Nyjer got the biggest hit of his life," Braun said. "One of the biggest hits in Brewers history."
It was Morgan who coined the term "Beast Mode" for the Brewers' wild gestures after their big hits. It started with Prince Fielder's kids, fans of the animated movie "Monsters, Inc.," throwing their hands -- er, claws -- over their heads and growling: "Ahhh!"
The team started doing it on the bases when it got on a roll after the All-Star break, and by the end of the season, fans were in the act, too. One particularly beastly fan dressed as the main character from "Monsters, Inc." -- neon-blue Sulley -- for NLDS Game 1, when the Brewers debuted "Beast Mode cam." Another fan sent the team a three-foot tall stuffed version of Sulley, and he celebrated with the ballclub on Friday night. By the end, Sulley badly needed a bath.
This is generally the type of stuff that would not fly in the Cardinals' veteran-laden, postseason-tested clubhouse, and the teams endured plenty of tension in 2011. Much of it involved Morgan, who was warned by umpire Joe West during a game in August to stop cursing at Carpenter from the dugout and later had words with Carpenter on the field at Busch Stadium after a 10-pitch strikeout, causing both benches to clear.
Morgan took to Twitter that night, referring to Albert Pujols as "Alberta" and saying he hoped St. Louis enjoyed watching Milwaukee in the playoffs. It turns out the Cards will watch up close.
"It's like 'Carp,'" said Brewers right fielder Corey Hart, referring to Carpenter. "He's not a very liked guy because of how he is [on the field], but his teammates might love him. Over here, there is a lot of negativity when you play against [Morgan], but when he's on your team, you love him. You realize how hard he works, and how his antics have a purpose. He gets us going. He gets our energy level high."
And he makes no apologies for that. None of the Brewers do, including 41-year-old Craig Counsell, with two World Series rings the team's most decorated player. Morgan calls Counsell his uncle, and Counsell mostly has no problem with the shows of emotion.
"A lot more of it goes on than we talk about, but for whatever reason, our guys have captured all of the attention," said Counsell, who conceded that one difference is Milwaukee doesn't hide from it. "I don't think we should hide from it. We have guys who thrive on showing emotion. Why should we change that?"
Even Zack Greinke, the Brewers' complicated Game 1 starter, is OK with Plush being Plush.
At least, most of the time.
"Ninety-five percent of the time, he's great," Greinke said. "Everyone else probably likes him 100 percent of the time, but every now and then, he talks too much for me and gets annoying. But I tell him that. Everybody on the team loves him; he has a good heart and he's fun."
Like the early-season off-day on which Morgan, new to Milwaukee, asked his Twitter followers how he should fill his down time. Someone suggested he go fly a kite. So Morgan did, and proved it with photos he posted later that night. The Brewers eventually auctioned the kite for charity.
Morgan does not intend to change. Asked whether he would say anything to Pujols -- the player he called "Alberta" a couple of months ago -- should Morgan reach first base in Game 1 on Sunday, Morgan said he might simply pat baseball's best player on the backside. Maybe not.
"What I said is probably not too cool to the world, but I didn't say anything about the way the man played the game," Morgan said. "He's still a heck of a player. ... At the time, the moment was heated. Maybe I shouldn't have said it."
Morgan is expecting a supercharged NLCS, given the teams' history. He expects a particularly "boo-ey" reception from the fans at Busch Stadium beginning with Game 3.
"But there's the biggest prize at stake, and I don't think any of this foolishness is going to pour over and get into what both teams are trying to do," he said.
"Thanks to Plush," he added, "the TV ratings are going to go up a little higher."
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