Bat removed from Bradley Center

MILWAUKEE - A bat swooped down during the Marquette basketball game at the BMO Harris Bradley Center on Saturday, January 26th, and had fans and players freaked out! On Monday, the bat was caught and released from the BMO Harris Bradley Center. Now, professionals are investigating at the BMO Harris Bradley Center to determine whether there are others.

On Monday afternoon, the president of the BMO Harris Bradley Center finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“The last 48 hours have been quite an interesting roller coaster ride for us,” Steve Costello said.

During the second half of the Marquette basketball game on Saturday, a bat began flying around the arena, stopping the game four times.

Players threw towels at the bat and announcers hid under towels. One Providence player tumbled over backwards to avoid this “Bradley Center bat.”

As the bat made its rounds, P.J. Winklemann, a bat expert with Advanced Wildlife Control was called in.

Eventually, BMO Harris Bradley Center officials dimmed the lights and the bat disappeared until Monday afternoon, when they recreated Saturday’s conditions.

“That got the bat going and then it was pretty much luck,” Winklemann said.

The bat was flying back and forth in the atrium until the arena’s operation manager Greg Peterson and a coworker acted.

“I took my jacket and tossed it, knocked the bat to the ground and he laid his jacket over the top and kind of surrounded it, and we walked out the door and opened the jacket and it went off,” Peterson said.

Winklemann says there was very little risk of the bat hurting anyone. He also says most likely this was an anomaly, but just in case, he and his coworkers are on hand.