It is demonstrated that many important features of single-pion production in pp collisions at intermediate energies (T p ≃ 400-800 MeV) can naturally be explained by supposing excitation of intermediate diproton resonances in pp channels 1 D 2 , 3 F 3 and 3 P 2 , in addition to conventional mechanisms involving an intermediate ∆-isobar. We predict for the first time the crucial role of the 3 P 2 diproton resonance, found in recent experiments on the single-pion production reaction pp → pp( 1 S 0 )π 0 , in reproducing the proper behavior of spin-correlation parameters in the reaction pp → dπ + which were poorly described by conventional meson-exchange models to date. The possible quark structure of the P -wave diproton resonances is also discussed.