Ok, the might be the most misleading headline I’ve ever written (and that’s saying something), though I could’ve opted for “No One Ever Mistook The Fort Lee, NJ Steak & Ale For Plato’s Retreat”. In the end, the combination of “Maury Allen” and “swinging” was far too much for me to resist — if only I still had advertisers! . The Palm Beach Post’s Joe Capozzi, mindful of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s plans to make a film about Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson (above) and Mike Kekich trading wives in 1973, gathered some dusty details from Peterson during a Ft. Lauderdale chat (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
“We were invited to a party at Maury Allen’s house on a Saturday night, July the 15th, 1972,” Peterson said. “During the party, we all had a couple of beers and were having a great time. When we were deciding to leave, we had driven two different cars and happened to park behind each other out in the street. I said to my wife, Marilyn, ‘Why don’t you ride with Mike to the diner in Fort Lee, N.J., and I’ll take Susanne with me and we’ll meet there and then we’ll go home from there.
“We did that and we had so much fun together, Susanne and I and Mike and Marilyn, that we decided, ‘Hey, this is fun, let’s do it again.’ We did it the next night. We went out to the Steak and Ale in Fort Lee. Mike and Marilyn left early and Susanne and I stayed and had a few drinks and ate.
“It was just really fun being able to talk to somebody. All of us felt the same way. We went on from there and eventually he fell in love with my wife and I fell in love with his.’’
Peterson said he didn’t think it would be that big of a story. But the day after the announcement, “I saw my picture on TV when I woke up,” he said. “And I said, ‘Uh-oh, it’s a big one.’ ’’