Private Lives, Public Headlines: Susanne Kekich and the Peterson–Kekich Family Story

Basic Information

The Opening Shot — how I think about this story

I’m going to be frank: when I first dug into the Susanne Kekich story, it read like a late-night TV special — romantic, scandalous, a little surreal — and then, like any good film, it kept surprising me when the camera pulled back. The spine of the tale is simple and cinematic: two teammates, both pitchers for the same major-league club; two families; an announcement in 1973 that felt like a cross between a tabloid cover and an experimental sociology experiment. Susanne sits at the center of that frame, sometimes named, sometimes referred to by a variant of her name, more often described by her role — mother, wife, the woman who moved households — than by a resume.

The moment: 1973 — facts, figures, and the oddness of it all

Numbers anchor an odd story. The year 1973 became shorthand for a social phenomenon: headlines called it a “trade” of lives. The rough arithmetic is memorable: two houses, two couples, four kids shuffled like pieces on a board — Kris­ten and Reagan (the Kekich daughters) went with their mother; Gregg and Eric (the Peterson sons) went with their mother. Two MLB careers provide the backdrop: Mike Kekich (a major-league pitcher whose career spanned the mid-1960s into the 1970s) and Fritz Peterson (an established left-hander and fixture of his team). The logistics were immediate and public — neighbors noticed; reporters knocked on doors; the world watched because these were public figures who had decided, bizarrely and bravely, to make their private rearrangements visible.

Family introductions — the cast and their short, cinematic bios

After the press lights dim — what happened next

If the 1973 announcement was a bright spotlight, the years that followed were a quieter montage. Fritz Peterson and Susanne married, most accounts point to 1974 as their marriage year, and they were thereafter a couple for decades; news of Peterson’s death in 2024 often revisited that old, strange chapter. Mike Kekich continued with his life and reportedly remarried later on; some pieces of the public record indicate different places of residence and a private life largely shorn of mainstream limelight.

What fascinates me — and what often gets glossed over in snappy headlines — is the human arithmetic of the follow-on years: careers wind down, kids grow up, the tabloid’s appetite moves on. The swap remained a cultural touchstone: a punchline, a curiosity, a cautionary tale — depending on who was telling it. And Susanne, who began as “one half” in the public’s shorthand, kept living the quieter paragraphs of that narrative, the ones that don’t make the magazine reels.

Career & money — the gaps in the frame

Here’s where the record goes grainy: I could not find clear public documentation of Susanne’s own professional career or a verified estimate of her net worth. Unlike her two spouses — both of whom are baseball names with statistics and career pages — Susanne’s public profile lives mainly inside the family story. That absence is itself telling; it makes her an emblem of how women attached to public men can become defined by role rather than résumé.

Cultural echoes — why the story keeps getting retold

Pop culture loves a freak-show moment with heart: the story gets re-aired in retrospectives, dissected in nostalgia pieces, and used as shorthand for the 1970s’ particular willingness to experiment with private life in public. I think of it now as a recurring film clip society plays when it wants to raise an eyebrow — equal parts curiosity and discomfort. The language around the episode has shifted from scandal to curiosity to historical footnote, but whenever the clip rolls, Susanne’s name resurfaces — sometimes spelled differently, sometimes reduced to the role she played in the swap.

What we don’t (and probably shouldn’t) assume

There’s a temptation to fill blank spaces with tidy stories: a full biography here, a bank balance there. The honest position is this — the public record, as commonly circulated, treats Susanne as a key figure in a very public family rearrangement and gives us fewer documents about her separate life. That scarcity invites imagination — and that’s why stories about her often feel cinematic: they leave room for atmosphere, for the unsaid, for the slow-motion close-up.

FAQ

Who is Susanne Kekich?

Susanne Kekich is best known publicly as the woman who was married to Mike Kekich and later to Fritz Peterson, and who figured prominently in the widely reported 1973 family swap.

What happened in 1973?

In 1973, two MLB teammates publicly announced that they and their families had rearranged households and romantic relationships, an episode that drew national attention.

Who were the family members involved?

The key people named in contemporary accounts include Susanne Kekich, Mike Kekich, Fritz Peterson, Marilyn Peterson, and the children Kristen, Reagan, Gregg, and Eric.

Did Susanne have a separate public career?

Mainstream public records and widely circulated coverage do not present a clearly documented independent career for Susanne; her public identity is primarily tied to the family story.

Is there an estimated net worth for Susanne?

No reliable, verifiable net-worth estimate for Susanne was found in the public material commonly available.

Is Susanne still married to Fritz Peterson?

Reports indicate Susanne and Fritz Peterson married circa 1974 and remained married until Fritz Peterson’s reported death in 2024.