The Midnight Sun Game is an amateur

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

game played every

summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...

Growden Memorial Park Growden Memorial Park is an outdoor park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States.Originally called Memorial Park, the park was renamed in 1964 in memory of James Growden who, along with his two sons, lost his life in the tsunami created by the Good ...

Fairbanks Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Because the

sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

is out for almost 24 hours a day, the game starts at about 10:30 at night and completes around 1:30 the next

morning Morning is the period from sunrise to noon. There are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) because it can vary according to one's lifestyle and the hours of daylight at each time of year. However, morning strict ...

. However, because Fairbanks's summer time zone differs by about an hour from local solar time, coupled with the state's observance of

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

, the game may not actually last until

solar midnight Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours ...

, at about 1:53. Famous players who have appeared in the game include

Tom Seaver George Thomas Seaver (November 17, 1944 – August 31, 2020), nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "the Franchise", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the New York Mets, Cinc ...

Dave Winfield David Mark Winfield (born October 3, 1951) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder. He is the special assistant to the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Over his 22-year career, he playe ...

Terry Francona Terrence Jon Francona (born April 22, 1959), nicknamed "Tito", is an American baseball manager and former player who is the manager of the Cleveland Guardians in Major League Baseball (MLB). Previously, he was the manager of the Boston Red Sox fo ...

Harold Reynolds Harold Craig Reynolds (born November 26, 1960) is an American former professional baseball player and current television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman from to , most prominently as a member of the Se ...

Jason Giambi Jason Gilbert Giambi (; born January 8, 1971) is an American former professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter. In his Major League Baseball (MLB) career, which began in 1995, Giambi played for the Oakland Athletics, New York Yank ...

, and Bill "Spaceman" Lee. After

Noel Wien Noel Wien (June 8, 1899July 19, 1977) was an American pioneer aviator. He was the founder of Wien Alaska Airways. Biography Wien was born in Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin, but the family moved to a homestead in 1905, to a place now called Cook, Minne ...

's arrival in 1924, he noted, "The baseball team played on weekends, and on June 21 and July 4 they always started a game at midnight sharp, just to indicate that this was the farthest city in the country." The first game was in 1906. Artificial light has never been used. The sun does dip below the

horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...

for about an hour. Since 1960, the game has been hosted by the

Alaska Baseball League The Alaska Baseball League (ABL) is an amateur collegiate summer baseball league. Players in the league must have attended one year of college and must have one year of NCAA eligibility remaining. The Midnight Sun Game, held at Growden Memorial ...

's Fairbanks-based

Alaska Goldpanners The Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks are a collegiate summer baseball team which was founded in 1960 as an Independent league baseball, independent Barnstorm (sports), barnstorming team. The Goldpanners were charter members of the Alaska Baseball ...

. The opposing team may be another ABL team, but frequently an NCAA or other collegiate summer team from another league is invited to play. In 2020 the Goldpanners pulled out of the contest due to the coronavirus pandemic and local amateur squads played the game instead, with a local American Legion Baseball squad facing the local

town team baseball Town Team Baseball is a variety of amateur baseball played in the United States. In Town Team baseball, sometimes also called townball, the teams represent either a given city or town, or a commercial enterprise which sponsors the team. Usually a ...

squad. The game has never been

rained out Rainout, washout, rain delay, and rain stopped play are terms regarding an outdoor event, generally a sporting event, delayed or canceled due to rain, or the threat of rain. It is not to be confused with a type of out in baseball, though a basebal ...

; the game narrowly avoided a rainout in 2020 after heavy downpours flooded the field earlier in the day, but the two competing teams were unwilling not to let the game go forward and cleared the field to the best of their ability to allow the game to go on. For 2021, the game expanded into a Midnight Sun Tournament, with a doubleheader consisting of the final of the American Legion Baseball tournament leading into the Goldpanners' Midnight Sun Game.

Game results

Through 1959, the Midnight Sun Game featured various teams from the Fairbanks area. In 1960, the game became exclusively hosted by the

. Although the Midnight Sun Game has been played since 1906, only games hosted by the Goldpanners are listed, with the exception of the 2020 contest. The Goldpanners are 47-14 all-time.

References

External links

* {{coord, 64, 50, 27, N, 147, 45, 32, W, display=title 1906 in baseball 1906 establishments in Alaska Annual events in Alaska Baseball in Alaska Sports in Fairbanks, Alaska Culture of Fairbanks, Alaska