Is PETA serious about "arm barn"?

I'm all for the ethical treatment of animals.

I want the chicken I eat when I whip up my delish sesame chicken to have lived its short life free ranging, not cramped in a cage pecking its eyes out. I want the cattle whose hides will go into the making of my next Dooney & Bourke pocketbook - and there will no doubt be a next one - to have met their death ambling up a ramp designed by Temple Grandin to calm their fears. 

I want polar bears to survive global warming; I want whales to be left in peace. 

I would never buy anything fur. 

I want every doggo to find a "forever home."

And if the world ends up moving away from its animal-exploiting ways, well, I'll be just as happy with that. As long as they make a bacon substitute that tastes and smells like bacon. (I really don't need another leather pocketbook. And 99% of the time the shoes on my feet are sneakers - no leather in sight.)

But when it comes to the ethical treatment of animals, PETA can go a bit overboard.

Their latest is a campaign - launched largely, I suspect, for publicity, as it coincided with the Wolrd Series - is requesting that Major League Baseball rename the bullpen, the place where the pitchers warm up, the "arm barn.

The animal rights group says "bullpen" mocks the misery of animals and devalues players...PETA says that cows and bulls are typically held in bullpens before

they are "hung upside down and their throats are slit in the meat industry" and "tormented into kicking and bucking by being electro-shocked or prodded."

"Words matter, and baseball 'bullpens' devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a news release. "PETA encourages Major League Baseball coaches, announcers, players, and fans to changeup their language and embrace the 'arm barn' instead." (Source: NPR)

Seriously, Tracy Reiman, does anyone - including Tracy Reiman - believe that using the word bullpen "devalue(s) talented players and mock(s) the misery of sensitive animals?"

I've been a baseball fan my entire life, and I never once thought of a bullpen as being anything other than the place where the pitchers warm up. Was I devaluing the talents of Dick Radatz, Bob Stanley, Jonathan Papbelbon, and Garrett Whitlock? NO! Was I mocking the misery of sensitive animals? NO!

As a means to get people to think about the maltreatment of animals, this campaign by PETA is actually pretty damned effective. They've got me thinking more about it. And while I'm no vegetarian, I could convert pretty easily. 

Still, for all the publicity it engenders, it also looks stunt-ish and makes PETA look a bit foolish. 

For as much as it makes me think about being kinder to our furry and feathered friends, it also makes me ask myself a lot of silly questions about using animals in figures of speech.

Is saying you're dog tired an insult to puppers? What does horsing around say about what horses are about? Are we being demeaning when we say in a pig's eye? Chicken out? Silly goose? Bird brain? 

Cat's pajamas? Bee's knees? Are we mocking those critters?

Anyway, it kind of feels like, when it comes to renaming the bullpen the arm barn, PETA is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. (Can we even say that???)

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That picture of the police officer in the Fenway bullpen was taken at the moment a Detroit fielder toppled into the bullpen trying to catch a David Ortiz grand slam during the 2013 ALCS. The Red Sox went on to win the World Series, and this picture became almost as iconic as the 1975 shot of Carlton Fisk trying to wave his home run fair. Anyway, a few months later, I recognized Steve Horgan on the street and spoke to him for a few minutes. He was quite good-humored about this brief shot at fame.