It's high time that baseball faces its hateful, mocking, anti-barnyard mentality... and erases "bullpen" from our vernacular

A sharp-eyed reader, RichieAllen, flagged this idea from the advocacy group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA is pitching Major League Baseball to retire the term "bullpen" and use "arm barn" instead. The animal rights group says "bullpen" mocks the misery of animals and devalues players.

Do I like this idea. 

Absolutely, not.

I LOVE IT!

Yes, yes, yes! This is soooo overdue. For decades, I've silently struggled with the hidden mockery of our barnyard beefcakes - not only the bulls who ejaculate unto us their herd-sustaining semen, but the baseball relievers who - despite turning the game into a succession of walks and strikeouts - are viewed as expendables, the lowest of the low on MLB rosters. 

While the rest of the team sits in luxurious dugout comfort, our relief pitchers are exiled - physically and psychologically - to a mud-laden shithole, a "pen" rife with disease, and commanded to "warm" their arm - the lone appendage for which they are valued. It's demeaning. It's wrong. It's unacceptable. It is verbal rape - not only of animals, but of the human condition. 

Worse, we often shorten it to the "pen," as in pigpen. Have we no concern for the feelings of our bovine buddies and porcine pals, traditional staples of the American barnyard? Will puppies and Shetland ponies be next?

Bullpen? 

I call "bullshit!"

That said, I'm not 200 percent sold on "Arm Barn." 

As stated above, human beings are more than mere "arms." We are hips, legs, breasts, heads, penises and/or vulvas. We are tongues, toes, ligaments, kidneys, earlobes and nipples. And we don't like to have them grabbed. 

To me, the fastest way to demean a relief pitcher is by calling him - or her - a "live arm," which suggests that he - or she - is mentally and spiritually deceased. I appreciate that PETA has suggested a replacement. Obviously, the organizational brain trust spent considerable time and effort attempting to craft the perfect word or phrase that adheres to the game's pastoral roots. For me, "Arm Barn" sounds too much like "Pottery Barn" - as in a china shop - which is the last place you want to house beings who only recently were considered "bulls." 

How about...

Pitch Paddock
Hurl Hut
Toss Trough
Curve Coop
Slider Silo
Scherzer Shithouse (named for the greatest pitcher today)

Or, in memory of a great reliever, the Thigpen. 

Are you with me?