The fifty-eight year Easter Monday baseball rivalry between North Carolina State University and Wake Forest University had a traditional fraternity celebration known as the PIKA Ball, held on the N.C. State campus, that followed it on Monday evening. Told from the viewpoint of sports journalists, players, fans, and PIKA members, the narrative reveals the excitement and developing strategies as the contest traverses several baseball eras. At the height of its popularity, the game drew astonishingly large crowds of spectators, many of whom were absentee government workers, providing the impetus for the North Carolina State Legislature to declare Easter Monday to be a state holiday.

Tim Peeler is a lecturer in English, journal editor, essayist and poet. He is a winner of the Jim Harrison Award for his contributions to baseball poetry and lives in Hickory, North Carolina.

Tim Peeler

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 236
Bibliographic Info: 30 photos, appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2013
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7452-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0379-7
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Introduction 3
Early Games 9
Living in the Dead Ball Era
1900–1910 13
1911–1920 43
The Roaring Twenties
1921–1930 81
Depression and War
1931–1940 113
1941–1950 145
End Games
1951–1956 184
Appendix A: Major League Statistics—
N.C. State Players 197
Appendix B: Major League Statistics—
Wake Forest Players  204
Bibliography 217
Index 221

• “well-researched work…valuable”—North Carolina Library Association
• “nostalgically chronicles the long-running annual competition between North Carolina State University and Wake Forest University”—Reference & Research Book News