Hall of Fame sportswriter Ray Didinger always had his fingers on the pulse of the Philadelphia sports scene, the good and the bad. Right now, it’s bad with the sagging Eagles and Flyers, and the sad way the Phillies went out. But Didinger has provided some shine with his new book, “Look What the Kid Wrote Today.”
It is a collection of stories through the years that Didinger, the Prince of the City, wrote involving a variety of subjects that covers everything from O.J. Simpson, to “Concrete” Chuck Bednarik and the personal role Didinger played in repairing the frayed relationship with the Eagles’ legend and the only team he ever played for, to shooting pool with Mean Joe Greene, running into Jack Nicklaus at the Merion pro shop, Cowboys’ enigmatic running back Duane Thomas and Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw.
You won’t put it down. You can’t.
It’s words from a time when sports stars were media accessible, and Didinger, in his typical way, brings them all to life.
“This came from an accumulation of over 50 years,” Didinger said about his most recent release. “After ‘Finished Business’ came out in 2021, in the subsequent years after that, people would say to me all the time that they liked the book, but I didn’t write about this or I didn’t write about that, or the time they heard I times I did things over the radio and why that wasn’t in ‘Finished Business.’ There were so many instances of that over the course of the last five years that I thought about maybe another book there.”
Didinger went back into his files about the subjects he did not touch on in “Finished Business.” The goal was for “Look What the Kid Wrote Today” to come out in 2025, but with the Eagles winning the 2024 Super Bowl, the release was delayed a year.
One of the more fascinating chapters involved John du Pont, who went on to eventually die in prison for killing 1984 Olympic gold medal wrestler David Schultz, and how Didinger first met him. Du Pont, often described as a creepy sheltered billionaire, greeted Didinger with a gun in his hand, which he placed on his office desk pointed toward Didinger, then asking “Does that make you feel uncomfortable?” then telling him he better see the story before he goes public, with the right to change anything he does not like in the story. Didinger explained to du Point that it’s not the way it works.
“There was such a high level of paranoia there, and in light of what happened later, it made more sense,” Didinger recalled.
Then there is the Simpson saga.
“I look on this book as a memoir 2.0, and the Simpson chapter was the one story that changed over time,” Didinger recalled. “I remembered writing when he was first accused of the murders that there must be some kind of mistake, this isn’t the guy I knew. Then, like everyone else who saw the evidence mount, I started to realize, ‘My God, I think he did it. What did I miss? I did stories about this guy when he was up in Buffalo. I spent time with him.’ I interviewed him throughout his career, to when he was in San Francisco. I felt I knew O.J. pretty well. I was told by everyone he had fooled me; that it was just a good guy act. Well, I saw O.J. in movies and he wasn’t a very good actor.
“Then you think back, CTE comes out and you see how it affects people. It creates pathological jealousy, paranoia, a change in personality, explosions of temper, this propensity to violence. They were all the classic symptoms of CTE. Apply it O.J. and it makes sense. Look at the times he carried the ball between Southern Cal and the NFL. He carried the ball over 3,300 times. How many shots to the head did he take? How many concussions did he have? I remember him telling me when he was playing for Buffalo that the day after games, he would lay in bed with the lights out and the blinds drawn with horrible headaches. To me, O.J. was a classic case of CTE. Put that in the context of CTE, together with what he was accused of, and it makes more sense. At the time in the 1990s, nobody knew anything about CTE. This gave me a chance to revisit the whole O.J. thing.”
The story was classic Didinger, bringing the reader to O.J.
Overall, it is a great collection of sports stories giving the reader a behind-the-curtain glimpse of legends that are rarely done today. You won’t be able to put down “Look what the Kid Wrote Today,” an amazing homage to his grandfather who used to tape Didinger’s stories up on the mirror in the bar he owned on Woodland Ave. in Southwest Philly called Ray’s.
Oct. 24 -- Main Point Books, Wayne, Pa. 2 pm.
Oct. 31 -- Barnes and Noble, Exton, Pa., 2 pm.
Nov. 7 -- Huxley and Hiro Books, Wilmington, De. 2 pm
Nov. 14 -- Carl’s Cards and Collectibles, Havertown, Pa. 2 pm.
Nov. 15 -- Barnes and Noble, Broomall, Pa., 2 pm.
Nov. 21 -- Barnes and Noble, Montgomeryville, Pa. 1 pm.
Nov. 28 -- Inkwood Books, Haddonfield, 2 pm.
Nov. 29 -- Narberth Bookstore, Narberth, Pa., 4 pm.
Dec. 5 -- Barnes and Noble, Plymouth Meeting, Pa. 2 pm
Dec. 12 -- Barnes and Noble, Neshaminy, Pa., 2 pm. Dec. 20 -- Barnes and Noble, Christiana, De., Noon
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