Two Baseball Players Went To A Barbecue Together And Ended Up Swapping Wives

You’ve probably heard of the two Yankees pitchers if you know your baseball history — even more so if you lived through their headline-making scandal — but if you haven’t then fear not! We’ve got you covered. Both Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson played for the Yankees in the same position, though they couldn’t have been further apart in both personality and reputation.

Both men were southpaws but Mike was perhaps better known for his transfer record than his success. In fact, his best career season was 10-13. He had a more laid-back approach to life, too, whereas Fritz was the reverse in many ways. He worked hard to become a 1970s All-Star and was also an infamous prankster.

A 2011 New York magazine piece recalled, “[Fritz] put talcum powder in Joe Pepitone’s hair dryer and printed up fake newspapers.” He also once switched a holster that Thurman Munson ordered for a left-handed one. And when Thurman tried to correct the order, Fritz sent him a book about left-handed shooting instead!

Still, Fritz had the respect of his peers, including Mike. Actually, they even lived near each other, so they became friends and hung out. The same was naturally true of their wives, Marilyn Peterson and Susanne Kekich. The former was a quiet deep thinker, while the latter was a sporty ex-cheerleader, so much like their husbands they shared a bond despite contrary natures.

The Kekich and Peterson family similarities didn’t end there, either. Both couples were pet owners and even had children in the same age bracket. And the more time they spent together the closer they got, until both couples came to a realization and decided to make a change. It was this decision that hit the newspapers at the time — and boy did it hit them hard.

Now, it’s worth noting that this all happened in the 1970s, when personal liberation was a hot new topic. People were opening up more about what happens behind closed doors, so Mike and Fritz didn’t give the media a second thought at first. But their “wife swap” still became the scandal of its day, with a 1973 Daily News headline reading: “Two yank pitchers changed wives.” And there were plenty more reports just like that one.

The story wasn’t restricted to newspapers either — it was all over the place. Four decades later Fritz told The Palm Beach Post, “I saw my picture on TV when I woke up and I said, ‘Uh-oh, it’s a big one.’” But though the episode’s widely regarded as a sex scandal, the couples involved paint a very different picture.

It wasn’t just wives they swapped, as you’ll soon discover. But that still raises a question: how do two married men decide they’re better suited to their friend’s partner? To answer that, we invite you back to when it all started. Though the families first met in 1969, their romantic interests really started to shift three years later during a friend’s get-together.

In the 1970s reporters and athletes socialized with each other a lot more than today because, as New York put it, “They traveled on the same planes, stayed at the same hotels, made about the same amount of money.” So it isn’t surprising that Maury Allen, sportswriter for the New York Post, asked Fritz and his wife to a barbecue to discuss baseball.

With Allen’s blessing, Fritz invited Mike and Susanne along, too. According to New York, as soon as the two couples arrived, Allen noticed they were behaving differently. Marilyn Peterson, who often wore a blond wig as her husband preferred it, had left her hairpiece at home. Allen recalled that her natural hair suited her better and somehow made her seem more free.

To add an extra layer of intrigue to the events, Marilyn had allegedly spoken to Allen’s wife in confidence about potential bedroom issues. Allen recalled in his 2000 book All Roads Lead to October that it seemed the wives were vying for Fritz’s time. And when the barbecue was over, Allen’s suspicions were confirmed. He overheard the couples talking about their swap in his driveway.

But the Peterson-Kekich swap was still just a concept at the time. It seems the couples were testing the idea — and they weren’t done for the night. Following the barbecue, they headed out to a nearby restaurant, All That’s Interesting reported in 2018. The article recounted how Fritz described the rest of the evening in his own words.

“When we were deciding to leave,” Fritz recalled, “we had driven two different cars and happened to park behind each other out in the street. I said to my wife, Marilyn, ‘Why don’t you ride with Mike to the diner in Fort Lee, N.J. and I’ll take Susanne with me and we’ll meet there and then we’ll go home from there.’”

“We did that and we had so much fun together, Susanne and I and Mike and Marilyn, that we decided, ‘Hey, this is fun, let’s do it again,’” Fritz continued. “We did it the next night. We went out to the Steak and Ale in Fort Lee. Mike and Marilyn left early and Susanne and I stayed and had a few drinks and ate.”

Apparently, the fact that the husband-and-wife couples were having more fun with their opposite numbers sealed the deal. They realized they were with the wrong partners — so why not do something about it? “All of us felt the same way,” Fritz elaborated. “We went on from there and eventually, he fell in love with my wife and I fell in love with his.”

Fritz added, “It just happened, it wasn’t planned.” The problem with the situation, of course, was that they all had lives of their own. They had houses to take care of, children to provide for, and pets to look after. That’s when they decided they needed something bigger than what the tabloids labeled a “wife swap,” though that’s the part the media focused on.

Instead, the Peterson and Kekich families chose to simply switch everything: wives, houses, pets, and even children. But the pitchers were public figures, so how would they explain this to their fans? After all, people would find out eventually. It’s important to note that neither of the couples believed they were doing anything wrong, though. Fritz emphasized that there was nothing “smutty” about their actions.

Their initial choice to break the news was their friend Allen. They trusted that he “wouldn’t make it sound too dirty.” But in the end Fritz and Mike decided they’d be better off doing the job themselves, so they each made speeches to explain their side of things. And they told the public everything.

As we know, though, the response was… unfavorable. It was seen as just as unsavory as the life-switching families had feared. This actually surprised them, because Mike and Fritz made earnest speeches. New York reported how Mike explained, “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.”

“We didn’t swap wives,” Mike continued. “We swapped lives.” And if you think the new arrangement had an impact on their jobs as well, you’re right. Fritz and Mike made a deal with manager Ralph Houk and general manager Lee MacPhail that neither of them would be traded to another team. This was because Mike was living with Fritz’s sons and Fritz had taken on Mike’s daughters.

Mike said it was “the only way I can be sure of seeing my daughters,” New York reported. Now, Houk and MacPhail actually seemed to be pretty easygoing about the whole situation. Perhaps they’d already seen all kinds of “scandals” in their careers. MacPhail came out with a good-natured wisecrack about canceling family day and that was that. In fact, Houk even supported his players in a public statement.

“They live their own lives and they’ve got a lot of years to live,” Houk said of his pitchers. “If you’re not happy, you only go through the world one time and why go through it unhappy? Some people say you have to stay together for the sake of the kids. We’ve seen people living together and they’re practically separated.”

Despite their initial support, though, the deal to keep both pitchers on the Yankees didn’t stick and they were transferred to different teams multiple times. Whether this had any effect on their switched relationships is hard to say. That’s because the life swap deal had already started to break apart — on one side, anyway.

Mike had announced that if anyone involved in the life-swap situation was unhappy, they’d go back to their old lives. Perhaps that was true for him but apparently the others didn’t feel the same way. Fritz recalled that they’d tried to revert to their old set-up once following the exchange yet it hadn’t stuck. Talk surfaced regarding some other bumps in the road, too.

In a 1973 interview Fritz said, “Mike started to campaign for my wife about in August. He talked to me seriously about it. He told his own wife, Susan, that he loved Marilyn more.” And tensions were allegedly running high between the pitchers within the year. Murray Chass of The New York Times wrote, “It was obvious they had bitter feelings toward each other.”

So, since Fritz described the whole saga as “a love story,” you’re probably wondering what went wrong. And the answer is nothing… for one of the couples. Fritz and Susanne are still together to this day and it seems that things have been very much as he described. Mike, on the other hand, got the worse end of the deal. By his own admission, his expectations had been too high.

Though Mike and Marilyn gave their relationship several chances to bloom, it didn’t work out in the end. Mike cites their personalities being too similar as the main cause. New York quoted him admitting that he and Marilyn were “born under the same sign, we sometimes butt heads. She and I are on a higher pitch in our emotions.” Physical attraction just wasn’t enough.

According to the Jobu’s Rum website, in 2016 Mike said, “My whole career went into a black hole [after the swap]. It was awful. The only way I could justify giving up my daughters was for a love far greater than any I have ever known. By American standards, Suzanne and I had a good marriage. But I wanted a great marriage. I was idealistic, I guess.”

Then a March 1974 incident added insult to injury when Mike hurt himself pitching in a game and his team looked for a replacement. You can guess who they brought in. That’s right, it was none other than his one-time best pal, Fritz. So Mike essentially lost everything and became what he himself called “one of the biggest soul-searchers around.”

Fritz didn’t feel bad about how their life swap ended, though. After all, he referred to himself and Susanne as “free people” with “free minds.” The Bronx Pinstripes website wrote in 2020 that Fritz asserted, “I didn’t steal anybody’s wife. I’m not ashamed.” Anyway, by the late 1970s both Fritz and Mike were out of the league and out of each others’ lives. So how did they feel towards each other in retrospect?

For his part, Fritz seemingly didn’t harbor any ill feelings towards his former teammate. According to Bronx Pinstripes, the pitcher’s exact words were, “We just went our own ways. I don’t have anything against him and I don’t think he has anything against me.” Mike’s own view on events is a little more complicated, as you might expect, and he isn’t shy about saying so.

At first, it appears that Mike didn’t feel great animosity towards his former Yankees teammate. In 2005 The Washington Post reported that in the years following the infamous swap Mike commented, “Neither Fritz Peterson nor I will ever make it into the Hall of Fame. But I know our names keep popping up in the Hall of Shame. I don’t lose any sleep over it but I really don’t think it’s fair.”

That didn’t last, though, and it seems that Mike very much changed his mind about these events. To be precise, when later asked for his opinion on how the “scandal” ended, he said of Fritz, “I’d like to kill him.” Whether this was a good-natured joke or not is the vital question here, though it’s probably one that’ll never be answered. Because things got worse for Mike before they got better.

There were serious talks during 2011 about turning the Peterson-Kekich life swap into a film called The Trade. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon began discussions with Fritz about producing it and the ex-pitcher was enthusiastic to contribute his side of the story. Mike, on the other hand, was far less willing. You can’t blame him, really, considering the outcome of the switch.

The more likely it appeared that the movie would be made, the more worried Mike became. That’s probably an understatement, actually, since a source said to the media that the former pitcher was “panic-stricken.” The anonymous insider added, “He’s moved away and has a new identity. He is freaked out that those working on the movie found out where he is. He isn’t too keen on having the scandal dredged up again after all this time.”

The story was that Mike had moved to New Mexico, close to Albuquerque. At least, that was his last known location. Regardless, he did everything he could to stop The Trade from going ahead. Some of his ex-teammates refused to give information to the producers about the scandal, though whether that was because Mike asked them not to is anyone’s guess.

Mike even said he’d sue if the movie about his life went ahead! His reluctance was enough to slow and eventually stop development — so far, at least — meaning the ex-pitcher got his reprieve. But that was a few years ago now, so where are Fritz and Mike today and what are they up to? Let’s start with Fritz, who hit the news again in recent years.

Doctors sadly diagnosed Fritz with Alzheimer’s in 2018. That year he told the New York Post, “I was diagnosed last September but when I say that I don’t even know what year that was. It’s been happening like that for me all year. So it’s confusing. It’s a wacky disease. It’s something so different.”

Fritz continued, “I don’t want to look into what comes next because I just want to enjoy every day.’’ As for Mike, he’s done his best to put the whole swap scandal in the past and seemingly went on to make a nice, quiet life for himself. Word is that he’s since married and become a father again, so things didn’t turn out too badly for him in the end.