“Of course, it never would have occurred to me that my father’s lifelong passion for the damned team might have had something to do with my utter loathing for them; this, after all, was 1940 and we hadn’t heard about pop psychology in those days.”

Joey’s father divorces his mother in order to marry a self-absorbed Manhattan socialite. Shortly afterwards, he ceases all contact with the boy. Due to his abandonment, Joey, his mother, and his aunt must relocate from the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn where they had resided during the marriage. They move to a neighborhood which is primarily Christian, and Joey is victimized by bigoted neighborhood bullies. The quote refers to the fact that Joey dislikes the Brooklyn Dodgers ball club, despite the fact that their field is visible from his bedroom window; however, he dislikes them intensely, perhaps because they were the favorite team of his absent father. 

“No doubt you will understand that it is far too premature to consider arming the Royal Air Force as you suggest, although your reminders relative to the Lusitania are sobering indeed.” 

Joey Margolis, the protagonist of the book, is a young, prolific letter writer. He frequently writes to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with remarkably astute election predictions and political observations. The above quote is from a reply sent to the boy by Stephen T. Early, White House Press Secretary during the Roosevelt administration. He is addressing specific concerns expressed by Joey in a letter sent to the President. Early alludes to a warning in Joey’s letter regarding the sinking of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner, by German U-boats in 1915, an event that led to U.