The Toledo Mud Hens are a Class AAA minor league
baseball team. Calling Toledo, Ohio home,
the team has been in the International League (Western Division) since 1965, although the team existed for decades
before. Since 1987 they have been the Triple-A
affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Just before then
they were the farm team for the Minnesota Twins.
The Mud Hens arguably may be the most famous minor league baseball team, due to the prominent display of their team's cap and jersey on the television series M*A*S*H. Both Jamie Farr and his character Klinger hail from Toledo, Ohio, and in the latter half of the episodes, after Radar O'Reilly left and Klinger took over
as company clerk, Klinger eschewed women's clothing for Mud Hens team wear.
In 2005, the Mud Hens won the Governors' Cup, thus making them that year's International League champions. They finished that season with an 85-59 won/loss record, much in contrast to their parent club's recent woes. Their only other Governors' Cup season was 1967. (The Governors' Cup was
innaugurated in 1933.)
The Hens formerly played at Ned Skeldon Stadium in the suburbs. In April 2002, the team moved into Fifth Third Field in downtown Toledo, ostensibly named for the Fifth Third Bank, who probably paid a moderate sum for the naming rights.
Mud hen is a colloquial term for any of a variety of birds which live in marshy or coastal areas (despite Toledo being far from such areas), such as a coot or a rail. The bird in Toledo's logo looks rather like a duck.
http://www.mudhens.com/