Ben Affleck and Matt Damon To Make Movie About Wife-Swapping New York Yankees

by uInterviewFebruary 25, 2011, 12:00 amNews >

Call it a hometown bias, but rumors about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s latest project The Trade do not have ex-Yankees Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson very happy.

Ben Affleck and his brother Casey are working on rewriting a script based on the story of Yankees players Kekich and Peterson, the New York Post reports. Affleck has hinted that Damon may direct, and Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz and Rebecca Hall have been considered for the female roles.

Teammates on the Yankees during the '70s, the duo made more headlines over their personal life, namely an alleged “wife swapping” scandal in 1973. According to the Post, the teammates were longtime friends who had joked about trading spouses. They actually acted on it in 1972, with their bed hopping ways causing a stir in the media the following year.

But it's not as scandalous as it sounds. Peterson and Susanne Kekich are still married; they currently split their time between New Jersey and Colorado. While Marilyn Peterson eventually moved in with Kekich, their relationship did not last. The former Bomber has since relocated to New Mexico and started over with a new wife and daughter. Kekich has no interested in reliving his past, and is reportedly “panic-stricken” over the thought that his personal life may play out on movie screen across the country. Although the project is still in its earliest stages, Kekich has refused to participate in any aspect of the film, with many of his former teammates following suit.

Without any help from the Yankees organization, the Affleck and Damon run the risk of letting their own hometown alliances get in the way. "I've come to have a little more respect for the Yankees. There are some of those guys . . . that look like good guys . . . But as an institution? Disdain. Contempt,” Affleck recently told MTV. So as Boston’s unofficial sons—and diehard Red Sox fans—will he and Damon be able to portray Kekick and Peterson in a fair or even favorable light? "Guys [bleep]ing each others' wives — that's those Yankees."