MILWAUKEE (AP) — Brewers third baseman Oliver Dunn made his way to the plate with a torpedo bat in hand with one out in the second inning and teammate Garrett Mitchell on third base after a triple.
Dunn’s at-bat during Milwaukee’s game against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon was significant because he became the first Brewers player to use the model. His first “swing” with the bat, the focus of considerable attention after the New York Yankees belted a team-record nine homers with the specially-designed lumber in the season’s opening days, turned out to be not much of a swing at all.
Instead, Dunn put down a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt that allowed Mitchell to hustle home with the game’s first run in what would turn out to be a 5-1 Milwaukee victory.
“Torpedo bats. What a difference,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said with a smile. “Did you see that bunt that scored the first run?”
Dunn’s decision to bunt caught teammate Sal Frelick off guard.
“It was his first at-bat with the torpedo. We were waiting for him to go hack up there and he dropped a little bunt down,” said Frelick, who homered for the first time this season, a sixth-inning solo shot using a standard bat.
The torpedo bat — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — features a design by an MIT-educated physicist.
“In my career, I had hit a lot of balls lower on the barrel and saw that’s what it was for and I thought why not,” Dunn said of his decision to give the torpedo bat a try. “It felt good but I don’t think I’ve gotten enough swings with it on the field to feel a difference. But it swings well. It swings light. The weight’s in a different spot. I liked what I’ve seen of it so far, for sure.”
Dunn grounded out to second in his only other at-bat on the day before Vinny Capra pinch-hit for him in the sixth.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Dunn, who said he was just trying to push across a run any way he could.
“It is funny that the first pitch I see was a bunt,” he said. “But it’s just a bat.”
Dunn said he expects to continue to use the torpedo, at least in the short term.
“I’ll probably roll with it initially and just get enough of a base to see if I like what I’m getting from it and make a decision from there,” Dunn said.
Whether any other Brewers players turn to the torpedo bat remains to be seen, but don’t expect Frelick to be one of them.
“I have no thoughts,” Frelick said when asked about the chatter surrounding the new-fangled bat. “You chop down a tree, you should be able to hit with it.”
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Milwaukee Brewers' Sal Frelick (10) reacts with Rhys Hoskins after Felick's home run against the Detroit Tigers during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks held up the effort.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!" he said in a social media post Wednesday.
Governors typically control states' National Guardsmen, and Trump had deployed troops to all three cities against the wishes of state and local Democratic leaders. He said it was necessary as part of a broader crackdown on immigration, crime and protests.
The president has made a crackdown on crime in cities a centerpiece of his second term — and has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to stop his opponents from using the courts to block his plans. He has said he sees his tough-on-crime approach as a winning political issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration.
In his post, Trump said the troops' presence was responsible for a drop in crime in the three cities, though they were never on the streets in Chicago and Portland as legal challenges played out. When the Chicago deployment was challenged in court, a Justice Department lawyer said the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government agents in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s office in a statement said the city’s reduction in crime was due to the efforts of local police and public safety programs. Chicago officials echoed the sentiment, saying in a release Tuesday that the city had 416 homicides in 2025 — the fewest since 2014.
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on X Wednesday that Trump “lost in court when Illinois stood up against his attempt to militarize American cities with the National Guard. Now Trump is forced to stand down.”
Hundreds of troops from California and Oregon were deployed to Portland, but a federal judge barred them from going on the streets. A judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there in November after a three-day trial.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement Wednesday that her office had not yet received “official notification that the remaining federalized Oregon National Guard troops can return home. They were never lawfully deployed to Portland and there was no need for their presence. If President Trump has finally chosen to follow court orders and demobilize our troops, that’s a big win for Oregonians and for the rule of law.”
Trump's decision to federalize National Guard troops began in Los Angeles in June, when protesters took to the streets in response to a blitz of immigration arrests in the area. He deployed about 4,000 troops and 700 Marines to guard federal buildings and, later, to protest federal agents as they carried out immigration arrests.
The number of troops slowly dwindled until just several hundred were left. They were removed from the streets by Dec. 15 after a lower court ruling that also ordered control to be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom. But an appeals court had paused the second part of the order, meaning control remained with Trump. In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.
“About time (Trump) admitted defeat,” Newsom said in a social media post. “We’ve said it from day one: the federal takeover of California’s National Guard is illegal.”
Troops will remain on the ground in several other cities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December paused a lower court ruling that had called for an end to the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., where they’ve been deployed since August after Trump declared a “crime emergency.”
Trump also ordered the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis in September as part of a larger federal task force to combat crime, a move supported by the state’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee and senators. A Tennessee judge blocked the use of the Guard, siding with Democratic state and local officials who sued. However, the judge stayed the decision to block the Guard as the state appeals, allowing the deployment to continue.
In New Orleans, about 350 National Guard troops deployed by Trump arrived in the city's historic French Quarter on Tuesday and are set to stay through Mardi Gras to help with safety. The state's Republican governor and the city's Democratic mayor support the deployment.
Ding reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Jack Brook in New Orleans and Adrian Sanz in Memphis contributed.
FILE - A protester confronts a line of U.S. National Guard members in the Metropolitan Detention Center of downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)
FILE - Protesters stand off against California National Guard soldiers at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, during a "No Kings" protest, June 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
