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.