Bullpen

Bullpen

In baseball, the bullpen (or simply the pen) is the area where relief pitchers warm-up before entering a game. Depending on the ballpark, it may be situated in foul territory along the baselines or just beyond the outfield fence. Also, a team's roster of relief pitchers is metonymically referred to as "the bullpen". These relievers usually wait in the bullpen when they have yet to play in a game, rather than in the dugout with the rest of the team. The starting pitcher also makes his final pregame warmups in the bullpen. Managers can call coaches in the bullpen on an in-house telephone from the dugout to tell a certain pitcher to begin his warmup tosses.

Origin/other meanings for the term "bullpen"

The origin of the term "bullpen," as used in baseball, is debated with no one theory holding unanimous, or even substantial, sway. The term first appeared in wide use shortly after the turn of the 20th century [cite web|url=http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorb.htm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20060428044310/http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorb.htm#bullpen|archivedate=2006-04-28|title=Etymologies & Word Origins: Letter B|publisher=Wordorigins] and has been used since in roughly its present meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest recorded use of "bullpen" in baseball is in the 1924 Chicago Tribune article from 5 Oct. II. 1/1.

Possible origins/theories about the term "bullpen" include:
#During the Civil War in the United States, the notorious Andersonville prison camp featured a bullpen. "Though conditions were initially a vast improvement over Richmond detention centers, problems grew in proportion to the number of inmates. By late summer 1864, the prison population made Andersonville one of the largest cities in the Confederacy. At its peak in August, the" 'bullpen,' "built to lodge up to 10,000 enlisted men, held 33,000 grimy, gaunt prisoners, each one crammed into a living area the size of a coffin. Their only protections from the sun were 'shebangs,' improvised shelters constructed from blankets, rags, and pine boughs, or dug into the hard, red Georgia clay."The Demon of Andersonville, Carolyn Kleiner on the Confederate soldier who ran the Civil War's deadliest prison, by Carolyn Kleinerhttp://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2002/story_kleiner_sepoct2002.msp Retrieved March 19, 2007. This wartime usage in the United States has occurred as recently as World War II. Tokio Yamane described conditions in Japanese relocation camps, referring to a "bull pen" within a stockade at Tule Lake, California: "Prisoners in the stockade lived in wooden buildings which, although flimsy, still offered some protection from the severe winters of Tule Lake. However, prisoners in the" 'bull pen' "were housed outdoors in tents without heat and with no protection against the bitter cold. The bunks were placed directly on the cold ground, and the prisoners had only one or two blankets and no extra clothing to ward off the winter chill. And, for the first time in our lives, those of us confined to the" 'bull pen' "experienced a life and death struggle for survival, the unbearable pain from our unattended and infected wounds, and the penetrating December cold of Tule Lake, a God Forsaken concentration camp lying near the Oregon border, and I shall never forget that horrible experience."PERSONAL JUSTICE DENIED, Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, WASHINGTON, D.C., December 1982, Part I: Nisei and Issei, Chapter 9: Protest and Disaffection http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/personal_justice_denied/chap9.htm Retrieved March 19, 2007.
#Temporary holding facilities for rebellious hardrock miners trying to organize into unions were referred to as "bullpens". These were sometimes literally pens normally used for cattle which were pressed into service by stringing barbed wire, establishing a guarded perimeter, and keeping large numbers of men confined in the enclosed space. "Bullpens" have been considered early versions of concentration camps, and were used by the national guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-04, and in Idaho in 1892 and 1899 during union miners' uprisings near Coeur d'Alene. In his autobiography Bill Haywood described Idaho miners held for "...months of imprisonment in the" 'bull-pen', "a structure unfit to house cattle, enclosed in a high barbed-wire fence."The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, William D. Haywood, 1929, page 81. Penned up in bullpens as a response to violence, many hundreds of union men had been imprisoned without trial. Peter Carlson wrote in his book "Roughneck", "Haywood traveled to the town of Mullan, where he met a man who had escaped from the" 'bullpen'. "The makeshift prison was an old grain warehouse that reeked of excrement and crawled with vermin. Overcrowding was so severe that some two hundred prisoners had been removed from the warehouse and quartered in railroad boxcars."Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 54.
#In the 1800s, jails and holding cells were nicknamed "bullpens", in respect of many police officers' bullish features -- strength and a short temper. The term was later applied to bullpens in baseball.
#The bullpen symbolically represents the fenced in area of a "bull's pen", where bulls wait before being sent off to the slaughter. The relief pitchers are the bulls and the bullpen represents their pen. Fact|date=February 2007
#The name may be a reference to rodeo bulls being held in a pen before being released into the main arena.
#Latecomers to ball games in the late 19th century were cordoned off into standing-room areas in foul territory. Because the fans were herded like cattle, this area became known as the "bullpen", a designation which was later transferred over to the relief pitchers who warmed up there.
#At the turn of the century, outfield fences were often adorned with advertisements for "Bull Durham Tobacco". Since relievers warmed up in a nearby pen, the term "bullpen" was created.
#Casey Stengel suggested the term might have been derived from managers getting tired of their relief pitchers "shooting the bull" in the dugout and were therefore sent elsewhere, where they wouldn't be a bother to the rest of the team -- the bullpen. How serious he was when he made this claim is not clear.
#Jon Miller, a baseball analyst with ESPN, said the term is derived from the late 19th century. The New York Giants first played at the Polo Grounds, which opened around 1880. The relief pitchers warmed up beyond the left-field fence. Out there in the same area was a stockyard or pen that had bulls in it.
#Reference to a large open work area consisting of desks with no separating walls and private offices. Bullpens are often used by Agile Software Development teams and were common across many business fields in the first half of the 20th century. [Dey & Associates Office Planning Manual http://home.telkomsa.net/deycor/office%20planning.pdf] Possibly derived from sports terms. Revived in popularity in part by Michael Bloomberg at his media company Bloomberg L.P. and in while he was Mayor of New York City. [ "Bloomberg Vows to Work at Center of Things", Adam Nagourney, New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E6DB1531F936A15751C1A9679C8B63. ]
#Within USAID, the Office of Transition Initiatives' bullpen represents a surge capacity of experienced professionals that can be called upon to assist in all aspect of office operations and programming.

Notes


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Bullpen — Moderner Bullpen der Houston Astros im Min …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • bullpen — 1915, in the baseball sense, from BULL (Cf. bull) (1) + PEN (Cf. pen) (2); perhaps from earlier slang meaning temporary holding cell for prisoners (1809). Bullpen also was the name of a baseball like game played in U.S. late 19c …   Etymology dictionary

  • bullpen — ull pen (b[.u]l p[e^]n ), n. (Baseball) 1. an open area in a baseball stadium, off the playing field, where pitchers may warm up by throwing a number of trial pitches before playing. [PJC] 2. [collective] the relief pitchers on a baseball team.… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • bullpen — ☆ bullpen [bool′pen΄ ] n. 1. a fenced enclosure for bulls 2. Informal a large room or enclosure for a number of people; specif., a barred enclosure in a jail, where prisoners are kept together temporarily, as between their arrest and the placing… …   Universalium

  • bullpen — ☆ bullpen [bool′pen΄ ] n. 1. a fenced enclosure for bulls 2. Informal a large room or enclosure for a number of people; specif., a barred enclosure in a jail, where prisoners are kept together temporarily, as between their arrest and the placing… …   English World dictionary

  • bullpen — The need for an afternoon coffee, due to tiredness. TMass states, My starting pitcher is petering out, so I m going to warm up the bullpen. (Warming up = brew a pot.) BLip. Yup it s 3:15. I need to hit the bullpen, too …   Dictionary of american slang

  • bullpen — The need for an afternoon coffee, due to tiredness. TMass states, My starting pitcher is petering out, so I m going to warm up the bullpen. (Warming up = brew a pot.) BLip. Yup it s 3:15. I need to hit the bullpen, too …   Dictionary of american slang

  • bullpen — UK [ˈbʊlˌpen] / US noun [countable] Word forms bullpen : singular bullpen plural bullpens American 1) a part of a baseball field where pitchers practise throwing the ball before they go on the field 2) informal a room where prisoners are kept… …   English dictionary

  • bullpen — noun a) An enclosed area used to hold bulls. Magnus and Big Buck are over in the bullspen, ready for tonights rodeo. b) An enclosed area for pitchers to warm up in during a game. After that hit, there is activity in the bullpen …   Wiktionary

  • Bullpen Bulletins — The first official Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, from The Amazing Spider Man #31 (Dec. 1965). Bullpen Bulletins (originally titled Marvel Bullpen Bulletins ) was the news and information page that appeared in most regular monthly comic books… …   Wikipedia

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