Midnight Sun Game

File:MSG 2022.jpg

The 2022 Midnight Sun Baseball Game was played at Growden Memorial Park in Fairbanks, Alaska. Photo by Jeff Olsen, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

The Midnight Sun Game is an amateur baseball game played every summer solstice at Growden Memorial Park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. Because the sun 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. 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, the game may not actually last until solar midnight, at about 1:53. Famous players who have appeared in the game include Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Terry Francona, Harold Reynolds, Jason Giambi, and Bill "Spaceman" Lee.

After Noel Wien'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 for about an hour. Since 1960, the game has been hosted by the Alaska Goldpanners, a collegiate summer baseball team based in Fairbanks. As the Goldpanners have been without a league since leaving the Alaska Baseball League in 2015, the opponent has typically been picked from other collegiate summer teams from anywhere in the United States.

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 squad. The game has never been rained out; 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 Alaska Goldpanners.. The Goldpanners are 49-15 all-time in Midnight Sun Games.

Date	Winning team		Losing team		Notes
Template:Dts	Military All-Stars	4	Civilian All-Stars	0
Template:Dts	Civilian All-Stars	x	Military All-Stars	x	No score available
Template:Dts	Civilian All-Stars	6	Military All-Stars	2
Template:Dts	Civilian All-Stars	5	Military All-Stars	0
Template:Dts	Civilian All-Stars	12	Military All-Stars	8
Template:Dts	Civilian All-Stars	x	Military All-Stars	x	No score available
Template:Dts	Sportland	6	Air Force All-Stars	0
Template:Dts	Sportland Bees	5	Ladd Special Units	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Sales and Service	16	Fairbanks	6
Template:Dts	Pan-Alaska Goldpanners	11	Fairbanks Pioneers	0
Template:Dts	Pan-Alaska Goldpanners	10	North of the Range Military All-Stars	4
Template:Dts	Pan-Alaska Goldpanners	8	North of the Range Military All-Stars	3
Template:Dts	Wichita Rapid Transit Dreamliners	3	Alaska Goldpanners	1
Template:Dts	Grand Junction Eagles	10	Alaska Goldpanners	5
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	4	USC Trojans	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	8	Oregon State Beavers	3
Template:Dts	Kumagai Gumi	10	Alaska Goldpanners	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Santa Clara Broncos	0
Template:Dts	Boulder Baseline Collegians	5	Alaska Goldpanners	2
Template:Dts	Arizona Wildcats	4	Alaska Goldpanners	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	12	Stanford Indians	3
Template:Dts	Ponchatoula Athletics	5	Alaska Goldpanners	4
Template:Dts	BYU Cougars	8	Alaska Goldpanners	5
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Washington State Cougars	6
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	4	Vanderbilt Commodores	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	6	Westwood Bruins	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	12	Red Deer M&K Generals	11
Template:Dts	Wichita El Dorado Coors	10	Alaska Goldpanners	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	8	North Carolina Tar Heels	2
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	16	Wisconsin Badgers	5
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	11	Intermountain Badgers	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	9	San Francisco Senators	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Anchorage Bucs	2
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	9	Chinese Taipei	0	Forfeit
Template:Dts	Moraga Marauders	12	Alaska Goldpanners	11	11 innings
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	8	San Francisco Senators	1
Template:Dts	Mat-Su Miners	2	Alaska Goldpanners	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	6	Hawaii Island Movers	5
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	San Diego SeaWorld Killer Whales	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	12	San Bernardino Tribe	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	9	South Lake Tahoe Stars	8
Template:Dts	Victor Valley Mets	2	Alaska Goldpanners	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	10	South Lake Tahoe Stars	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	15	San Diego Stars	6
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	10	San Francisco Seals	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	5	Anchorage Bucs	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	12	Kelowna Grizzlies	0
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	14	Kelowna Grizzlies	7
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Oceanside Waves	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	3	Santa Barbara Foresters	2
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	2	Oceanside Waves	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	2	California Dons	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	3	California Dons	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	9	Peninsula Oilers	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	3	Omaha Strike Zone	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	2	Beatrice Bruins	1
Template:Dts	Oceanside Waves	5	Alaska Goldpanners	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	10	Southern California Running Birds	6
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	6	Lake Erie Monarchs	3
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	4	Heroes of the Diamond	3	15 innings
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	2	Oceanside Waves	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Everett Merchants	5
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	4	San Francisco Seals	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	13	Lake Erie Monarchs	6
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	7	Seattle Studs	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	9	Kenai Peninsula Oilers	2
Template:Dts	San Diego Waves	4	Alaska Goldpanners	2
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	6	Orange County Surf	4
Template:Dts	Seattle Studs	5	Alaska Goldpanners	4	11 innings
Template:Dts	Eielson Brewers Alaska Legion	15	Black Spruce Pirates Fairbanks Adult Amateur Baseball League	13	Contested only by local teams due to COVID-19 pandemic
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	3	Everett Merchants	0
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	10	San Diego Waves	9	10 innings
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	5	Michigan Monarchs	1
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners	10	Seattle Studs	4
Template:Dts	Alaska Goldpanners		Anchorage Glacier Pilots

External links

• Template:Official website