Finished Business, Indeed: Newly Retired Philly Sports Media Icon Ray Didinger Coming to Avalon
It seemed like such an innocent question at the time …
It is the first week of May and I am 45 minutes into a fun, freewheeling Zoom interview with Philadelphia sports media legend Ray Didinger when I say: “So the title of your most recent book is ‘Finished Business.’ Does that mean you’re thinking of retiring, or is it just a catchy title?”
Didinger, 75, falls quiet. Then asks, “When will this story come out?”
“Memorial Day weekend,” I answer.
“OK, then I’ll tell you … I’m retiring.”
Stunned, I say the only thing that came to mind: “Wow.”
He generously adds, “For the purposes of the story you’re writing, the fact that I will have announced my retirement is a pretty significant part of the story.”
I couldn’t agree more.
When Didinger officially announced his retirement a few days later, during the radio show he has hosted on WIP with Glen Macnow for the last 20 years, it was a vintage Ray Didinger moment. His statement was prepared, classy, and choked with genuine emotion.
The station was immediately flooded with calls from friends, family, and fans expressing their heartfelt surprise, sadness, admiration, and gratitude for the man known to many as “Ray Diddy.”
Didinger began covering the Eagles in 1969 and has been woven into the fabric of Philadelphia sports ever since. With a rare blend of intelligence, insight and integrity, Didinger has become a revered authority and an utterly irreplaceable presence. Luckily for Avalon residents and visitors, all of these qualities will be on display when he appears at Surfside Park on June 18 at 6pm as part of the Avalon Free Public Library’s Author Series.
A prolific sportswriter, author, screenwriter, playwright, radio host, and sports commentator, Didinger has won six Emmy awards, was Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year five times, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Beyond writing, he’s endeared himself to a legion of fans as a radio personality and as the wise gentleman with the yellow notepads on the “Eagles Pregame” and “Postgame Live” shows on NBC Sports Philadelphia. He is quite simply, the most respected analyst in Philadelphia sports history.
With such unbridled success, it’s hard to believe that Didinger’s original career aspirations were fairly simple.
“I thought I was going to be a sportswriter my whole life,” he says. “That was really my goal, when I went to college at Temple University, I studied journalism. I worked at the student newspaper and when I applied for jobs, I just applied to newspapers. I thought I’d be a sportswriter. When I got the opportunity to do that, as far as I was concerned, I’d arrived.”
Didinger was encouraged to pursue his passion by his supportive, sports-oriented family.
“My father told me, ‘You can make a living doing anything, but the people who are happy in this world are the people who are doing what they love,’” he recalls. “Now, the only question was, could I get a job doing that, because they’re precious and few. But I got a job and just went on from there.”
He went from there, and then some. Didinger wrote for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Philadelphia Daily News for more than 25 years before becoming a senior producer at NFL Films, and then transitioning to radio and TV broadcasting.
“Everything grew out of my goals as a sportswriter,” he says. “I never foresaw the radio or TV. I never really thought about writing books; then I thought maybe, but I never thought I’d write 12 of them. I certainly never thought I’d be making movies, but I went to NFL Films and did that for 13 years. And I never imagined I’d write a play and I’ve done that. So, it wasn’t as if I had a blueprint for my life, it just kind of happened.”
Yet, that kind of varied, sustained success doesn’t simply happen. It takes talent, dedication, and especially in Philadelphia … authenticity.
“I knew that in this town, the fans are smart. If you try to be a fanboy as a writer, the fans won’t take you seriously,” Didinger says. “They don’t want to be patronized or lied to. To work in Philadelphia and have any longevity, you have to be honest, and that’s all I’ve tried to do for the last 50 years.”
Didinger’s authenticity was never more apparent than in an entirely unscripted, viral moment caught on live TV after the Eagles Super Bowl victory in February 2018. His son David, who was working the Super Bowl as a cameraman for NFL Films, came and found his father in the middle of the “Postgame Live” broadcast. The two shared an emotional embrace that left Didinger in tears, and echoed sentiments and scenes playing out across the entire Philadelphia region.
“What brought me to tears was hugging my son and at the same moment thinking, ‘God, I wish my father was here to celebrate with us,’” he recalls. “And I think it touched everybody kind of the same way. Because there was somebody in everybody’s family who had been a big Eagles fan who wasn’t there to see it. That’s what I was thinking, and I think everybody watching it thought the same thing. There had been this desperation in the city that it was never going to happen. So, when it actually happened, there was this huge release of joy and relief.”
That Super Bowl victory was also the catalyst for Didinger’s memoir, “Finished Business.”
“It kind of put a bow on the whole thing,” he shares. “I had covered the Flyers, Sixers, and Phillies championships. The one missing piece was the Eagles winning the Super Bowl. That night, I just felt … ‘My book exists now. It has an ending.’ I felt that a memoir, looking back on the whole 50 years, kind of made sense.”
The Eagles’ Super Bowl win also played a role in his decision to retire. “It was the one thing I wanted to put my stamp on, to say my piece about what it means to the city, and I got that opportunity,” he says. “After that, I don’t know that there’s much left to say, other than goodbye.”
In fact, Didinger is looking forward to what comes next. With his wife, fellow writer Maria Gallagher, he shares two children and four grandchildren.
“My family has been so great about giving me the freedom to do what I had to do. I’ve missed holidays and birthdays, and it’s time for me to give back to them,” he says. “My oldest granddaughter will be a senior in college and the captain of her field hockey team, and I want to be at her games.”
So as our conversation turned from breezy talk of a book-signing event into a deeper discussion about retirement and family, Didinger talked about his legacy. Not surprisingly, he had the perfect words.
“I’d like to be remembered as a guy who people respected because I gave them an honest opinion,” he says. “That there was never any question that I’m telling you what I think. I was just here to, as Howard Cosell used to say, ‘Tell it like it is.’ And if that’s how people will view me after all this time, after all these thousands of columns, thousands of words, and all the shows … ‘Didinger? He’s a straight shooter.’ That’s good. Because that’s really all I’ve tried to be.”
Ray Didinger will be at Surfside Park in Avalon on June 18 at 6pm for an author appearance and book signing event. For more information, contact the Avalon Free Public Library (avalonfreelibrary.org / 609-967-7155)
Ray D’s Top Threes
You can’t talk to Ray Didinger and not ask for a few opinions! Here he shares a few of his Top 3’s.
Top 3 Eagles Coaches
1. Dick Vermeil. I think he’s a great coach. The mess that he inherited with the Eagles in 1976, and the fact that he built that team into a Super Bowl team was just amazing and then he did it again with the Rams. So Vermeil is my No. 1.
2. Andy Reid.
3. Doug Pederson. He delivered the trophy.
Top 3 Eagles Quarterbacks
1. I think the greatest quarterback who’s ever played here is Norm Van Brocklin. I didn’t cover him, but that team would not have won the championship in 1960 without him.
2. Donovan McNabb is probably an underrated player. He didn’t win a Super Bowl but pretty much did everything else.
3. Ron Jaworski. I think that Jaws was just blue-collar tough, he didn’t see himself as a superstar. Even though the fans booed him sometimes, and the team let him down sometimes, he never pointed the finger at anybody else. That’s why the guys on the team loved him and I really admired him.
Top 3 Career Moments
1. Presenting Tommy McDonald for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sharing that moment with my boyhood idol. How can you top that?
2. Doing the “Postgame Live” show after Super Bowl LII, sharing the hug with my son, just reveling in the moment.
3. Accepting the McCann Award (for long and distinguished reporting) at the Pro Football Hall of Fame and seeing my name on the plaque in the Hall itself. Truly a dream come true.
