The Lighter Side of The Dark Side of Baseball

The Yankees Wife Swap

I read about this today, and my first reaction was simple, What the actual fuck! I had never heard this story before, and it pulled me in right away. One of my first thoughts was, is this some crazy Mormon bullshit? But that didn’t fit.

In 1973, Yankees pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson were more than teammates. They were best friends and neighbors. Their families did everything together. Cookouts, vacations, kids playing side by side. Then they did something I still can’t believe they announced publicly. They swapped families. Wives, kids, houses, dogs, cars. And they didn’t keep it quiet. They held a press conference and told the media like it was just another roster move.

Surprised but then again people are people. I might not get how others want to live their lives, but it isn’t my business. I don’t care what anyone does in their personal life. What fascinates me is the psychology of it. This kind of thing is far outside my comfort zone, which is exactly why I find it interesting. I’ve only ever met one person who admitted to swinging with another couple, and that stuck with me. I’m vanilla, maybe naïve, but curious. So, when I read about two Yankees trading families and then announcing it to the press, I wanted to understand what could possibly drive them to that point.

And here is what really makes it stand out. Porn is everywhere today. People talk openly about sex, about what they consume and what they do. The filters are off. Nothing seems shocking. Yet this story still surprises me. Maybe because it was so public. Maybe because they weren’t just fooling around, they were restructuring their entire lives and dragging their kids and homes into it. Or maybe because they stood in front of the New York press and acted like this was just something people do.

The early 1970s matter here. America was still carrying the counterculture of the 1960s. Free love had moved from communes into the suburbs. Key parties, open marriages, swinging. Hollywood even turned it into comedy with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Kekich and Peterson weren’t radicals. They were Yankee pitchers in New Jersey. But they got caught in that current and pushed it further than most.

And in a way they invented a reality show before reality TV. They were thirty years ahead of Wife Swap. The only difference is they didn’t need producers or prize money. They just blew up their lives and told the press about it.

The fallout was brutal. Peterson’s side of the swap lasted. He married Susanne Kekich, and they stayed together for decades. Kekich’s side fell apart almost immediately. He lost his wife, his best friend, and his reputation. Fans heckled both of them. The media shredded them. Teammates wanted nothing to do with it. Peterson had won 20 games in 1970, but that was erased. All anyone remembers is the swap. Kekich never recovered.

This wasn’t a crime. Nobody broke the rules of baseball. But it is one of the strangest stories in the game’s history. Baseball always mirrors American culture. The 1910s had gamblers and fixers. The 1980s had cocaine. The 1990s had steroids. The 1970s had swinging and free love. And the Yankees ended up with the strangest trade in sports.

That is why this belongs in Dark Side Light. It is not tragic. It is not criminal. But it is human, messy, and absurd. Even today, in a world where porn is casual, sex is public, and nothing seems to shock, this still does. This is a What the Fuck type story…