Swapping entire families?

Did you know that in March of 1973, New York Yankees pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson swapped families?

That really happened.

The two pitchers swapped their wives, Marilyn and Susanne, and their children.

The Kekich daughters – 5-year-old Kristen and 2-year-old Reagan – moved with their mother to the Peterson house, and the Peterson sons – 5-year-old Gregg and 2-year-old Eric – moved to the Kekich home with their mother, Marilyn.

This is a real thing that really happened.

I can’t believe it.

The two families had been friends since 1969, and at some point, they decided it would be better if they pulled off a switcheroo.

Can you imagine that conversation? How does the person with the idea even broach the subject with the others?

Even more incredible was the spotlight that both men were occupying at the time. Both were Major League pitchers on the New York Yankees, in the midst of solid careers. This was not two couples living in Paramus, New Jersey, unknown to the world, living in relative obscurity. These two men were playing baseball on the biggest stage in the world when they swapped families.

The attention they received must have been astronomical.

Peterson and the former Susanne Kekich remained married for nearly 50 years following the swap, but sadly (I think), the relationship between Kekich and Marilyn Peterson did not last very long.

By June, the Yankees had traded Kekich to Cleveland.  

“Unless people know the full details, it could turn out to be a nasty type thing. Don’t say this was wife-swapping because it wasn’t,” Kekich told the Daily News at the time. “We didn’t swap wives. We swapped lives.”

“It’s a love story. It wasn’t anything dirty,” Peterson told a reporter in 2013. “I could not be happier with anybody in the world. ‘Mama’ and I go out and party every night. We’re still on the honeymoon, and it has been a real blessing.”

Back in 2015, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were developing a film based on the story, but it seems to have fizzled out, as most Hollywood projects do. but it would’ve made a hell of a story.

Author Julia Quinn famously wrote that “Love works in mysterious ways.” If this isn’t the epitome of that quote, I don’t know what is.