NOW HERE'S A BASEBALL TRADE I CAN GET BEHIND

Wife swapping! We don’t have enough wife swapping movies, and I’m not talking about adaptations of that awful ABC reality show. I’m talking about Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, former Yankees pitchers who shocked their ball club – and the world – by swapping wives during the Swinging 70s. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, newly dealed up at Warner Bros, want to make a movie about this, and it’s called The Trade.

According to Wikipedia here’s the story:

[Fritz Peterson] is better remembered today for swapping families with fellow Yankee pitcher Mike Kekich, an arrangement the pair announced at spring training in March, 1973. Peterson and Kekich had been inseparable friends since 1969; both families lived in New Jersey, their children were about the same age, and often they all would visit the Bronx Zoo or the shore or enjoy a picnic together. They decided that they would one day trade wives, children, and even dogs.

The affair began in 1972, when the two couples joked on a double date about wife swapping, a phenomenon that caught on in some uninhibited circles during the early 1970s. According to one report, the first swap took place that summer, after a party at the home of New York sportswriter Maury Allen. The couples made the changes official in October; Kekich moving in with Marilyn Peterson and Peterson with Susanne Kekich, but no word leaked out until spring of 1973. A light moment came when New York Yankees General Manager Lee MacPhail remarked, “We may have to call off Family Day.” The trade worked out better for Peterson than it did for Kekich, as Peterson is still married to the former Susanne Kekich, with whom he has had four children. Kekich and Marilyn Peterson did not last long.

Damon and Affleck’s interest extends back to their days as Live Planet, circa Project Greenlight. They hired Seinfeld‘s David Mandel to work on a script years ago, and he took a reduced fee and his time. The Trade was completed last year and ended up on the Black List.

While Richard Linklater is interested, Deadline Hollywood reports that Affleck is seriously considering directing it himself, and he’s working on rewrites with Mandel. Could Boston boys Affleck and Damon don Yankee pinstripes and swap wives on screen? It seems likely.