Marie Didinger, Eagles fan supreme

RAY DIDINGER called his mother last Friday at her home in Sarasota, Fla., and all she could talk about was how excited she was that she would be able to see her beloved Eagles playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday.

Since she moved to Florida, she rarely was able to see the Eagles play after a near-lifetime of following the team with the passion and knowledge of the true fan.

But Sunday's game would be televised.

"She asked me if McNabb was going to play, if Westbrook was going to play," Ray said. "Was it true they had brought back Trotter?

"She said, 'I'm really looking forward to Sunday. The Eagles will win easily.' "

But Marie Helen Didinger didn't get to see the game. She died Sunday of lung cancer. She was 84.

Marie grew up in Southwest Philadelphia and she and her late husband, Raymond George Didinger, lived in Wallingford, Delaware County, before moving to Florida in 1988.

"She could talk football strategy, X's and O's, with any man," said her son, a former sports writer for the Bulletin and Daily News, a former senior producer for NFL Films and is a Comcast SportsNet analyst.

While other people were sunning themselves on the South Jersey beaches, the Didingers were at the Eagles training camp in Hershey, watching two-a-days.

Ray said that he learned letters and numbers on his mother's lap as she paged through the program of the previous Eagles game.

"She would point out the names and numbers of the players," Ray said. "For instance, she would point to Number 15. That was Steve Van Buren. I would learn the number and how to spell the name. I was the only 4-year-old who could spell Alex Wojciechowicz's name.

"She was very opinionated. If she didn't like the way the team was performing, she would let you know about it."

Marie and her husband had season tickets from the time they were married in 1945 and never missed a game.

"People would assume that I got my love of sports from my father," Ray said, "but my mother was just as much an influence. She was every bit the sports fan that Dad was."

His father, a manufacturing executive and Air Force veteran, died in January.

Ray said that people assumed that since his father was a serious-looking Air Force major, coming and going in his beribboned uniform, that he was the disciplinarian in the household.

Wrong.

"Dad was a soft touch," Ray said. "Mom was the disciplinarian. She made the rules. Mom gave the orders."

Not long ago, Ray was going through his old report cards from Our Lady of Peace Parochial School, in Milmont Park, and was amused to see which of his parents signed the cards.

"Anytime my grades were less than ideal, I'd get my father to sign," Ray said. "If the grades were good, I'd get Mom to sign."

Marie was no dummy, and more than likely saw through the ploy, but she didn't let on. If she didn't see a report card for a while, she might ask, "Isn't it about time for you to get a report card?" But that was it.

While other parents might have considered the collection of baseball cards a waste of time, Marie Didinger was an active participant in her son's collection.

"She helped me organize them by team, wrap rubber bands around them and put them in a cigar box for me," Ray said.

When Ray was playing baseball and football for the Folsom Boys Club, Mom insisted on repairing and washing and ironing his uniform, even if Ray objected.

"I didn't want it fixed," he said. "I liked it torn. I thought it looked mean. But it hardly hit the floor when she was working on it."

Marie was born in Philadelphia to William Curran and the former Mary Faulkner. She graduated from West Catholic High School.

She and her future husband lived just blocks from each other in Southwest Philadelphia and traveled in the same circles. They started dating before he went into the Army Air Corps in World War II, and were married after the war.

He continued to fly after the war as a member of the Air Force Reserves.

Ray said his dad was a passionate fisherman who pursued his hobby in the waters off Florida; his mother did not participate.

"Dad would catch the fish, and Mom would cook them," Ray said.

Before moving to Florida, Marie volunteered in the cafeteria of Our Lady of Peace School, and at Taylor Hospital, in Ridley Park.

Besides her son, she is survived by a brother, William Curran; two grandchildren, David and Kathleen; and two great-grandchildren, Haley and Kaitlyn.

Services: Funeral Mass Friday morning at the Church of the Incarnation, in Sarasota. Friends may call at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Toale Brothers Funeral Home, in Sarasota. Burial will be in the military cemetery there, where her husband is buried.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the church, at 2929 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota, FL 34239.