People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA), usually takes a complaint about animal cruelty with a grain of salt. However, if you’re having a bad day, PETA’s new idiotic complaint should at least make you laugh.
The newest gripe in the ever-important war on animal cruelty (winks sarcastically) is taking the fight to MLB, where members of PETA have petitioned that the term “bullpen” – which is the designated area in which relief pitchers warm-up before entering games – be changed to “arm barn” because the current term apparently mocks “the misery of sensitive animals.”
This is probably the most ridiculous alternative name you can come up with. “Arm Barn” sounds more like a place where a bunch of stocky men would go for an arm-wrestling tournament, which definitely is not what happens in baseball.
The bullpen is not meant to dehumanize animals. PETA claimed bullpen, which is where cows are kept before their slaughter, somehow diminishes pitchers’ talents (by using them as a comparison to cows, I suppose). People are less sensitive to the suffering of cows.
While emotions like these are often persuasive in persuading people to believe an argument. A simple historical look will reveal that the history of bullpen origins is not clear at all and wasn’t used in any derogatory manner.
O.P. Caylor, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter, made the first reference to bullpen in May 1877. Caylor wrote this game recap:
The bullpen at Cincinnati has been relegated to a ‘three-for-a-quarter crowd’. Now, the discount crowd comes to the bleacher board just north of old pavilion at the beginning of each inning.
Since that first mention, it has evolved in its meaning and become as commonplace a term in baseball as “home run.” But never once was it used to demean animals or devalue pitching talent. Did anyone think Mariano Rivera, a bullpen pitcher in New York, was less talented than any other pitcher during the 1990s or early 2000s? It’s not true!
There is nothing wrong with the term “bullpen,” and anyone who thinks so is idiotic.
PETA could focus its energy instead of focusing on a sport term and blaming Dr. Fauci for the inhumane treatment of dozens beagle pups killed by him as part of bizarre science experiments.
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