Major League Baseball

111th annual Midnight Sun Baseball Game called for darkness

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 4:54 p.m. ET

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) The 111th annual Midnight Sun Baseball Game in Alaska was called because of darkness.

The annual game is played in Fairbanks on the solstice with no artificial lights, capitalizing on the 21 hours and 49 minutes of sunlight.

The first pitch was at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the night proceeded to get darker because of storm clouds and the setting sun.

The Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks were leading the Kenai Peninsula Oilers 8-0 at the top of the 7th inning when the umpires called a 30-minute delay at 1 a.m. Wednesday to give the sun time to come back up over the horizon.

At 1:30 a.m., Goldpanners interim general manager John Lohrke said it didn't look that different and umpires decided to delay the game until Wednesday evening out of safety concerns. Lohrke said the game has since been called.

It's not the first time darkness has played havoc with the famous baseball game in the north. Lohrke said a team about 30 years ago walked off the field because of darkness.

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