Yank wife-swap movie steps up
BEN Affleck and Matt Damon’s movie about the Yankees’ 1973 wifeswapping incident is going forward despite the efforts of one of its subjects to get the film killed.
Devout Yankees haters and diehard Red Sox fans Affleck and Damon have been determined to make “The Trade”— based on a scandal caused when former Yankee pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson made a bizarre, off the field bedroom trade by swapping wives— since 2010.
But 40 years after the swap, Kekich was panicked. He’d settled quietly in New Mexico and was “freaked out,” according to sources. He had determined not to cooperate and other former teammates agreed to do the same.
But the project is still in active development at Warner Bros., and “Austin Powers” director Jay Roach signed on last year.
Back in ’ 73, Kekich and Peterson bizarrely announced to the press they’d traded wives. ( The Yanks’ GM at the time joked, “We may have to call off ‘ family day.’ ”) Their wifeswapping concept was hatched at a ’ 72 party hosted by Post sports columnist Maury Allen, and Kekich and Peterson each left with the other’s wife. By December, they’d each moved in with the other’s spouse.
While Kekich’s wife, Suzanne, later reported everyone was happy — today she’s still with Peterson, whom she later married— Kekich had a change of heart. He and Peterson’s wife, Marilyn, had called it quits, and he said of his teammate Peterson, “I’d like to kill him.”
Affleck and Damon initially wanted to star in the film but will now produce. ( Affleck famously refused towear a Yankees cap in “Gone Girl,” saying, “I couldn’t put it on my head.”) No replacement cast is yet named, butwe suggest Seth Rogen and James Franco. Or, Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, Chris Pratt and Nick Offerman, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill?
Meanwhile, best buds Affleck and Damon this week sealed a deal with NBC Universal’s Syfy to produce an espionage thriller series, “Incorporated.” Kekich can only hope their more titillating “The Trade” winds up stuck in development.