In the spring of 1973, two New York Yankees pitchers walked into separate rooms at the team’s spring training facility in Fort Lauderdale. They weren't there to talk about ERA, curveballs, or the upcoming season. They were there to announce a trade.
But it wasn't a trade the front office had authorized.
Left-handers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich told a stunned room of reporters that they had swapped families. Not just their wives—Marilyn Peterson and Susanne Kekich—but their children, their houses, and even their dogs. It was a "life swap."
Honestly, even fifty years later, the story feels like a fever dream from a 1970s tabloid. But it was real. It happened. And while Fritz Peterson and Susanne remained together until his death in 2024, the other half of the trade crashed and burned almost immediately.
The Barbecue That Changed Everything
Most people think this was some wild, late-night party decision. It wasn't. It actually started at a quiet barbecue in New Jersey on July 15, 1972.
The two couples were best friends. They spent almost all their time together. That night, after dinner at sportswriter Maury Allen's house, they decided to head to a diner in Fort Lee for a late-night snack. Peterson suggested they swap cars for the short drive.
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Peterson took Susanne Kekich. Mike Kekich took Marilyn Peterson.
"We had so much fun together... that we decided, 'Hey, this is fun, let's do it again,'" Peterson later recalled. What started as a joke about "hey, I like your wife" turned into a serious emotional realization. They weren't just swapping for the night. They were falling in love with the "wrong" person.
By October, they decided to make it permanent.
"We Didn't Swap Wives, We Swapped Lives"
This is the phrase Mike Kekich used to try and keep the narrative from becoming "smutty." He was terrified the public would see it as a swinging arrangement.
The logistics were bizarrely organized.
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- Fritz Peterson moved into the Kekich home with Susanne and the Kekich daughters, Kristen and Reagan.
- Mike Kekich moved into the Peterson home with Marilyn and the Peterson sons, Gregg and Eric.
- The family pets—a poodle and a terrier—stayed with their respective houses.
Think about that for a second. You don't just lose a husband; you gain a whole new father figure and a different set of kids in the hallway. Peterson and Susanne found a groove immediately. They fit. They had a shared intellectual and emotional connection that they both felt had been missing in their previous marriages.
But for Kekich and Marilyn? It was a disaster.
The Trade That Went Sour
If this were a baseball trade, the Yankees "lost" on the Kekich side of the ledger.
By the time the press conferences happened in March 1973, the Kekich-Marilyn pairing was already falling apart. Marilyn reportedly found Kekich difficult to live with—ironically, the same complaints Susanne had about him.
By June 1973, the Yankees had seen enough. George Steinbrenner, who had just bought the team, was reportedly livid about the "immorality" of the situation. He wanted them gone. Kekich was traded to Cleveland. Peterson followed a year later.
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Kekich’s career never recovered. He bounced around from the Cleveland Indians to Japan, Mexico, and eventually out of the game entirely. He later tried to go to medical school and eventually settled into a life in real estate.
Fritz Peterson, on the other hand, was arguably the "winner." He and Susanne got married in 1974. They stayed together for over 50 years. They had children of their own. For them, it wasn't a scandal; it was a legitimate love story that just happened to have the world's most awkward beginning.
Why We Are Still Talking About This in 2026
Fritz Peterson passed away in April 2024 at the age of 81. His death brought the story back into the spotlight, reminding everyone of a time when baseball players were human beings with messy, complicated, and sometimes public personal lives.
Mike Kekich, now living a private life near Albuquerque, New Mexico, has spent decades avoiding the press. He’s reportedly "panic-stricken" whenever someone mentions making a movie about the swap (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were famously attached to a project called The Trade for years).
The legacy of the Kekich-Peterson swap isn't just about the shock value. It’s a snapshot of the early 1970s—a bridge between the buttoned-up 1950s and the "anything goes" era of the late 70s.
What You Should Know About the Fallout
- Teammate Reactions: Most Yankees didn't actually care. Thurman Munson famously said he only cared about what they did on the mound.
- The Kids: The "life swap" meant the children stayed with their mothers. While it was disruptive, Peterson always maintained they tried to keep things as stable as possible for the kids.
- The Silence: Kekich and Peterson, once inseparable roommates, didn't speak for the last 20+ years of Peterson's life. The breakdown of the Kekich-Marilyn relationship created a rift that never healed.
If you’re looking to understand the modern athlete, you have to look at these moments where the personal completely overwhelmed the professional. The Peterson-Kekich swap remains the most extreme example of "taking your work home with you" in sports history.
Actionable Insights for Sports Historians
If you want to dive deeper into this specific era of Yankees history, start by reading Jim Bouton's "Ball Four." While it doesn't cover the swap itself (it was published earlier), it gives you the exact clubhouse atmosphere that allowed such a wild situation to develop. Additionally, tracking the career of Mel Stottlemyre during these years provides the necessary context of how the "straight-laced" part of the team handled the chaos around them.