“Bullpen” is demeaning to human ballplayers, says PETA
The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, has a solid mission, but their methods and reasoning is often….kind of out in left field (seriously, outlawing “pet”?).
So while they recently objected to the term “bullpen” being used to describe the place where relief pitchers and backup catchers warm up, which sounds ridiculous on the surface, kind of makes sense when you dig into it.
This news was originally reported by People Magazine.
The World Series, of course, is currently ongoing between the American League champion Houston Astros and National League champion Atlanta Braves, and as of this writing, Atlanta leads two games to one while Houston is ahead 7-5 in the seventh inning in Game 4.
PETA asks Major League Baseball to please stop referring to the pitcher’s practice area as the bullpen.
“Words matter, and baseball’s “bullpens” devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals,” a PETA statement on their website read.
The statement goes on to explain that “bullpen” is often used for holding areas in slaughterhouses (obviously bad things happen there) and rodeo areas (where bucking bulls are often victims of electroshock to make them bad-tempered and/or terrified), which could be seen as a form of speciesism, which they argue is parallel to ableism, racism, or homophobia, all of which society has been attempting to phase out of everyday life.
While we wouldn’t quite go that far, it does kind of demean the dignity of the players who sit there, which could mean that a change in terminology might be a good idea after all.
However, PETA’s suggestion needs some work. They suggest “arm barn” replace “bullpen,” which is slightly awkward syllable-wise (it doesn’t quite work for slant rhyme, and the R sound is hard for those with lisps to say). Also, the mental image “arm barn” conjures feels straight out of a horror movie like Saw, which is maybe even worse.
On the other hand, “bullpen” has become slang in a wide variety of non-baseball fields to mean “a gathering of people at work,” particularly in journalism and tech settings, so changing the baseball term probably would take quite some time for the slang to adapt in everyday life as well, but would probably be just as valuable.
For more coverage of the World Series throughout the FanSided Network, see our sister sites Call to the Pen for general baseball coverage, Climbing Tal’s Hill and House of Houston for Houston-centric content, and Tomahawk Take for Atlanta-slanted coverage.
Next. World Series: The best all-dog baseball rosters. dark