PETA says baseball world should stop using "bullpen" in favor of animal-friendly "arm barn"
PETA is looking to "liberate the language we use in baseball." The animal rights organization wants the term "bull pen" be retired – and in its place, "arm barn" should be used.
In baseball, the "bullpen" is where pitchers warm up before taking the field. But PETA says there is another meaning. "'Bullpen' refers to the area of a 'bull's pen' where bulls are held before they are slaughtered—it's a word with speciesist roots & we can do better than that," PETA said on Twitter.
"Switching to 'arm barn' would be a home run for baseball fans, players, and animals," the organization said. To really drive their campaign home, PETA changed its Twitter name to Arm Barn.
"Words matter, and baseball 'bullpens' devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement. "PETA encourages Major League Baseball coaches, announcers, players, and fans to changeup their language and embrace the 'arm barn' instead."
PETA says in the meat industry, cows are hung upside down and their throats are slit and in rodeos, "gentle bulls are tormented into kicking and bucking by being electro-shocked or prodded—all are typically held in a 'bullpen' while they await their cruel fate."
The organization opposes what it calls "a human-supremacist worldview," and has asked for certain animal-related phrases and idioms to be changed in society.
In 2020, they updated their list of animal-friendly idioms to include phrases like "packed like pickles," instead of "packed like sardines" and "ants in your pants" to "pepper in your pants."
Instead of "crying over spilled milk," PETA suggests "crying over burnt toast." And instead of "kill two birds with one stone," PETA advocates "feed two birds with one scone."
In 2018, PETA explained their animal-friendly idiom list in a tweet: "Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are and start 'bringing home the bagels' instead of the bacon."
