On June 12, 1973, the Yankees swapped wife-swapper Mike Kekich for Lowell Palmer of the Indians. Fritz Peterson, with whom Kekich had swapped families in THE SCANDAL OF 1973 remained with New York.
I’ve mentioned before that Fritz was my bowling instructor at Northern Illinois University.
And now here’s another tale of swappage involving Fritz and myself.
It was the summer of 1971 and as editor/sports editor of the Northern Star newspaper, I decided an interview with NIU’s own Fritz Peterson was in order when the Yankees came to Chicago for a three-game series in late July.
Before teaching bowling, Fritz had been a baseball star at Northern, which is about 60 miles west of Chicago. So he had plenty of exposure to the Cubs and White Sox during his pre-Yankee days.
My big question was, did he ever hope to wind up with the White Sox and, stunningly, he said yes. So I had a pretty good story.
Now all we needed was a picture.
We were all sitting in the visitors dugout at old Comiskey Park and the sun was casting a rough shadow on Fritz. So our photographer suggested that we swap seats. And we did.
OK, the first tale was better, but what else do you have to read this early in the morning? And don't worry, I've never had any contact with Mike Kekich and I'm totally out of Fritz Peterson stories.