PETA Tells MLB Content Creator He Should Use “Arm Barn” In Place Of “Bullpen,” & Honestly, I Don’t Hate It

Quinn Eaton·
CULTURESPORTS
·
Cubs bullpen

PETA is swinging for the fences with this one.

The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals has once again set their sights on trying to cancel something that’s really not worth canceling. PETA evidently doesn’t like that Major League Baseball – and the sport of baseball as whole – refers to the pitcher warm up areas in stadiums as bullpens.

It’s not the first time they’ve tried to offer up an alternative to bullpens either. Back in 2021, when name changes were running rampant in the United States (syrup, baseball teams, you name it), PETA even tried to convince the MLB that the term “bullpen” was offensive and insensitive towards animals:

“Words matter, and baseball ‘bullpens’ devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals. PETA encourages Major League Baseball coaches, announcers, players, and fans to changeup their language and embrace the ‘arm barn’ instead.”

And you might be asking yourself… why is it even called a bullpen in the first place?

ESPN suggests that the term bullpen came from an era when every major league stadium was fitted with a Bull Durham tobacco sign in the outfield – close to the area where the pitchers would warm up. Because pitchers were often getting ready in the shadows of the large bull sign, the phrase bullpen was coined and quickly caught on.

Another theory harkens back to the 1800s (baseball has been around for a long, long time), when pitchers would often warm up in the foul territory areas of the outfield. When the games would first begin, fans that arrived late would apparently be pushed into those roped-off areas, and would still be allowed to watch the game. Because the sight closely mimicked herding cattle, the area was nicknamed the bullpen.

As you can see, neither of the potential origin stories paint a scenario where someone said, “Hey, you know what I find nice and dandy? Those buildings where they slaughter bulls and then hang em’ up, ya see? Let’s reference that for the rest of baseball history, just for the heck of it! What do ya say?” Sorry for typing in “old timey speak” there, but I was really trying to provide some imagery.

I’ve also always thought the warm up area was called the bullpen because it was loosely alluding to the small cage that bulls are kept in before they try to buck off a bull rider at the rodeo. That’s what has always made the most sense to me, but I also know that PETA doesn’t like bull riding, so it might not be the best thing to bring up in this story.

But anyways, PETA’s desire to do away with bullpen and replace it with “arm barn” came up once again when they asked an MLB content creator – Marc Luino – to change his language on it. As you can see in this post from Marc, PETA slid into his DMs with this reminder:

“Since baseball is back, don’t forget to use ‘Arm Barn’ instead of ‘Bull Pen.'”

I’d probably respond the same way that Marc Luino did. Kind of weird of PETA to slide into someone’s DMs, is it not?

And to be frank… arm barn isn’t that bad of an alternative. I’ve actually heard both terms used, though announcers and baseball fans almost exclusively use bullpen instead. I will give a tiny bit of credit to PETA for suggesting arm barn. It’s very descriptive, and still keeps the animal-adjacent feel of the original. Does a barn not imply any animal cruelty issues though?

To be clear, I don’t think it should change from bullpen. That would be silly. I’m just saying that arm barn isn’t that bad of an option – and some people agree with me. That being said, a lot of people are strongly against PETA’s suggested alternative… as you can see in some of these replies:

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