For Ray Didinger, Tommy McDonald a hero with write stuff

RAY DIDINGER and Tommy McDonald go way back.

In the late 1950s and early '60s, Didinger - then just a boy - would carry the flanker's helmet after practices at Eagles training camp in Hershey.

Who knew that years later, Didinger would spearhead a successful campaign to get McDonald into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and then introduce his boyhood hero at the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio in 1998?

It's the stuff of Hollywood movies. Or in Didinger's case, a play.

The former Daily News columnist has penned "Tommy and Me" and Theatre Exile will stage a reading at the Plays and Players Theatre in Center City on May 4 at 7 p.m.

"My mom and dad took me on vacation to Hershey for two weeks every year during Eagles training camp," Didinger said yesterday. "I was at practice everyday, so more often then not he would pick me to carry his helmet.

"Back then I was a stat geek, just like I am now, so I knew all of his numbers from Oklahoma and he got a kick out of it . . . that this little kid would know the stats.

"I never told him about it until the day he was going into the Hall of Fame. That's when I said, 'I was your biggest fan. When I was little, I used to carry your helmet.'

"And you could see a light go off and he said, 'You were that kid. You're the kid with the numbers.' "

Didinger said it took a little over a year to write the play - his first - which he then took to Theatre Exile's artistic director, Joe Canuso.

Didinger said he was concerned people wouldn't remember the now-80-year-old McDonald.

"But Joe told me not to worry," Didinger said. "That the play was a story about a boy and his childhood hero and that everyone has a childhood hero."

Tom Teti will read the part of McDonald while Matt Pfeiffer portrays Didinger. The Plays and Players Theatre is at 1714 Delancey Place. You can get information online at theatreexile.org or call 215-218-4022.