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Tell this to your friends when you go Outside.

It’s likely there’s still plenty of people in the Lower 48 who will — as the Fairbanks Daily Times said on June 22, 1906 — “try to humor you and tell you how good the doctor will treat you” if you tell them about tonight’s Midnight Sun Game, which will begin at 10:30 and continue into the morning without any artificial light.

Count Alaska Goldpanners third baseman Raoul Torrez as one of them.

He was shocked to hear that the field lights won’t be plugged in during the game.

Torrez also was taken aback by Fairbanks’ bright nights after falling asleep on his flight from Seattle that arrived Thursday morning.

“I woke up and it was bright as day out the window,” Torrez said, “so I’m thinking, ‘OK, we landed. We missed our transfer.’ It was really freaky.

“It seems like it’s been kind of like one long day. I’m still waiting for the night. It’s kind of freaking me out a little bit.”

Goldpanners manager Tim Gloyd, in his second season with the team, is a little less freaked.

Instead of worrying about the late start, he’s taking it as an opportunity to play a round of golf with Goldpanner veteran Sean Timmons.

“That’s what relaxes me,” he said.

The uniqueness of the game has drawn national attention. In 2005, it was the focus of a four-minute feature on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” That same year, sports writer Jim Caple listed the game as the No. 8 experience in baseball.

“I think it’s real awesome being a part of it,” Goldpanner Thomas Myers said. “Only one chance, so why not experience it?”

The matchup between the Southern California Running Birds and the Goldpanners has little resemblance to the original game 103 years ago, which started from a bar bet.

But when Bill “Spaceman” Lee tosses the first pitch at 10:30 p.m. with only the sun lighting the field, it will begin a game that has much more in common with that 1906 game when California Bar (the “Drinks”) defeated Eagles (the “Smokes”) 7-4 in seven innings than any other baseball game this year.

With so many years of tradition, it’s not likely the game will be called due to darkness, but Torrez said he’s prepared for that from playing at Arizona State.

“I’d have to say at ASU we probably have the worst lights in the Pac-10 if not in the country,” he said. “ So I’m kind of used to seeing a fly ball and not knowing where it’s at.”

Contact staff writer Joshua Armstrong at 459-7583.