Faithful Yankees Haters to Make a Movie About Yankees Wife-Swap Scandal

Matt and Ben by Jaquar PS / Jay Roach by Helga Esteb / Shutterstock

Little-known area actors, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are revisiting their long-time baseball passion project, according to Variety.  Their working movie called The Trade is based on a scandal involving two New York Yankees pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, who made a rather alternative off-the-field “trade” by swapping wives in 1973.

As the story goes (What, did you think this was a joke? It’s not.) Peterson and Kekich bizarrely announced their situation to the press at a party held by a New York Post columnist: “We’re not just trading wives,” they’d said, “we’re trading lives!” The Yankees GM at the time was all, “We may have to call off ‘family day!'” And everyone probably guffawed, took a swig of champagne, and continued acting blasé about the scene because if they thought about it too hard, they’d be be sincerely terror-stricken.

Fast forward to 2015, Kekich’s original wife Suzanne is still married to Peterson. Kekich and Peterson’s wife, though, didn’t work out. Sad.

Damon and Affleck’s project has been in the works for more than five years now. The two actors were going to star as Peterson and Kekich, while Casey Affleck helped with the script. This was all was put on the back burner in 2011 thanks to Kekich threatening to sue if his baggage was resurfaced all over again. Then other things came up like being Batman and doing Bourne movies and winning Oscars. You know, busy people get sidetracked.

So the project is on the move again with Warner Bros. and the duo’s Pearl Street Studios now overseeing, but the team made adjustments since 2010. While Damon and Affleck will no longer star, Jay Roach has been tapped to direct. This seems fitting considering his ties to both dramas and cult comedies like HBO’s Game Change, and also Austin Powers and Meet the Parents.

There’s no word on Casey Affleck’s current involvement yet, nor an official greenlight on shooting, so don’t expect to see the lads sporting Yankees caps anytime soon. Or ever.