WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Brent Rooker doesn't plan to change his approach at the plate for the Home Run Derby.
“I mean, look, just about every swing I’ve ever taken in my life I’ve been trying to hit a home run,” the Athletics slugger said. “It’s not like I have to change too much in that regard, but I did get out here early yesterday and got a feel for a 3-minute round to kind of feel the timing of it.”
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New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. (13) runs the bases after hitting a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. hits a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Athletics' Brent Rooker hits a solo home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Athletics' Brent Rooker runs after hitting an RBI double during the second inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants Friday, July 4, 2025, in West Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Sara Nevis)
Athletics' Brent Rooker is greeted in the dugout after hitting a solo home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Rooker and New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. were added Thursday to the list of derby participants, completing the eight-player field. The event will take place Monday night in Atlanta ahead of Tuesday night's All-Star Game.
Rooker will become the first Athletics player in the Home Run Derby since Matt Olson in 2021.
“I think it's going to be fun," Rooker said. “I'm looking forward to it. As a kid growing up, that was one of the highlights of the summer was watching the Home Run Derby and seeing the guys participate.”
The 30-year-old Rooker entered Thursday with a .270 batting average, 19 homers and 50 RBIs, putting him on pace for a third straight season of at least 30 homers. He went deep 30 times in 2023 and had 39 homers in 2024.
His 58 homers since the start of the 2024 season rank him third among American League players.
Joe Caruso, Rooker's longtime youth coach, will pitch to him. A's manager Mark Kotsay joked with Rooker that he should have asked him, but Rooker said he “respected my manager's four-day break.”
“You get the opportunity to go compete and show your skillset,” Kotsay said. “We have all watched Rook hit homers, 39 of them last year, so I think it's deserving that they selected him. It'll be fun to have something entertaining to watch on Monday night."
The only A’s players to win the derby were Mark McGwire in 1992 and Yoenis Céspedes in 2013 and 2014.
Chisholm, a 27-year-old two-time All-Star, is making his first appearance in the derby and will become the seventh different Yankees player to participate. Five have won the event; Aaron Judge was the most recent in 2017.
Acquired from the Miami Marlins last July, Chisholm began the day batting .250 with 17 homers and 43 RBIs in 62 games this season. The left-handed hitter homered twice Wednesday night against Seattle and had seven home runs in his last 12 games. He had 10 homers since returning from an oblique injury on June 3.
Chisholm was asked Wednesday night if he would like to participate in the derby.
“I mean, if they call me and ask me, I probably would be interested in doing it,” he said.
The other scheduled participants are Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr., Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh and Washington’s James Wood.
AP freelance writer Larry Fleisher in New York contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. (13) runs the bases after hitting a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. hits a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Athletics' Brent Rooker hits a solo home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Athletics' Brent Rooker runs after hitting an RBI double during the second inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants Friday, July 4, 2025, in West Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Sara Nevis)
Athletics' Brent Rooker is greeted in the dugout after hitting a solo home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
