The Mudhens began in 1998 when a group of Northfield neighbors dragged an old chalk liner out to an empty lot by the river and decided the town deserved its own nine. The name comes from the mud hens — the rails and coots that work the riverbanks at dawn, tough, loud and impossible to move off their patch.
Whitaker Field followed in 2001, built with volunteer weekends and donated lumber. Today it seats 1,400, runs a summer slate of more than thirty home dates, and hosts the youth clinic that has put gloves in the hands of over four thousand Northfield kids.
What hasn't changed is the baseball: pitch to contact, catch what you should catch, run everything out — and leave the park better than you found it.
