http://chud.com/nextraimages/sluggerswife.jpgFurther to the headline, if you’ve never heard the one about Kevin Costner nearly ending Cal Ripken, Jr.’s consecutive games played streak by sleeping with his wife, why don’t you remedy that. (Costner has denied it, and I believe him, but it’s still one of the greatest sports rumors ever.)

As for Costner’s career as it does not relate to his possibly soured friendship with the Baltimore Oriole’s Hall of Fame shortstop, well, it looks like the the movie star enjoyed his time on the smallish The Upside of Anger, because he’s decided to do the indie producing thing with his newly christened shingle, Treehouse Pictures (his studio flicker-makin’ entity, Tig Productions, yet lives). Their first offering will be Swing Vote, a political comedy about a single father whose un-cast vote will improbably decide the U.S. Presidential election. Aside from being the last absentee ballot counted, I don’t know how this would be possible, but I’m sure it’s something writer-director Joshua Michael Stern has carefully considered. Actually, what I’d do is have the guy laid up in the hospital after getting the piss kicked out of him by a major league baseball player, but that’s just ludicrous, isn’t it?

Swing Vote will begin shooting this July, and will court domestic and international distributors at Cannes. As a card-carrying, Open Range-owning Costner apologist, I’m hoping for the best; he’s been one of my favorite movie stars since The Untouchables, and shouldn’t be wasting his big screen charm on crap like The Guardian and Rumor Has It. I haven’t seen his upcoming June release, Mr. Brooks, yet, but it’s from the director of Kuffs, so it must be really damn good.