Baseball is the only sport that has inspired competitive play according to its vintage rules, but several other sports have long-standing reenactment traditions.

On Sept. 28, 1892, Mansfield was the site of the world's first night football game, and the Mansfield State Normal School (now Mansfield University) team took on Wyoming Seminary with the lights provided by General Electric, and posted on a pole in the middle of the field.

The game ended in a 0-0 draw at the end of the first half in part because the dim light emitted from these primitive bulbs made it virtually impossible for the game to continue.

Still, it's become the little town of Mansfield's claim to fame, and in 1992 General Electric made a commercial about the game to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the game.

"We hosted the world's first night football game, and haven't hosted a night football game since. It was our first and our last because we still don't have lights for our field," said Mansfield sports information director Steve McCloskey.

But Mansfield starting re-enacting the game on a annual basis in conjunction with the centennial celebration in 1992, and this tradition has continued into the present day.

Now, the university's track team and all interested townspeople take on the role of the football players, and they run through a scripted set of plays identical to the ones called during the original game.

Football in the 1890s was a brutal affair, says Mansfield men's basketball coach Rich Miller, a Hummelstown native who has participated in the reenactment at least six times.

"It's a neat spectacle and a heck of an experience," said Miller, who was played basketball, football and baseball at Lower Dauphin before becoming a kicker on the football team at Bucknell. "When we're out there playing, we're not trying to kill each other, but it still becomes a little physical.

"You can see how much more dangerous football was in the 1890s. Without modern equipment and the rules they have today, it was significantly more dangerous."

The ball used is slightly rounded and looks more like a rugby ball than the modern football, and passing wasn't part of the game at the time.

"One guy runs, everyone else blocks. There were no receivers, no split ends, no tight end or quarterback," Miller said. "The ball is snapped, one guy runs, everybody else is a lineman that puts their head down and blocks for you. It gets flipped to the running back and you go forward."