How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"After a while people no longer recognized him, except on the ball field, yet though the kidding died down, Pop was a marked man." (2.182)
Fisher's Flop, a mistake Pop made as a young man that cost his team the World Series, is an error that Pop can never shake off. Being a "marked man" means that he will never escape that terrible day, and also that other people know about it, as if "loser" is tattooed on his forehead. That history makes it hard for Pop to believe that he will ever be a winner.
Quote #2
[. . .H]e was tensed and sweating and groaned aloud why did it have to be me? what did I do to deserve it? seeing himself again walking down the long, lonely corridor, carrying the bassoon case, the knock, (less and more than human) with the shiny pistol, and him, cut down in the very flower of his youth, lying in a red pool of his own blood. (2.195)
That question "why did it have to be me? what did I do to deserve it?" drives Roy crazy, because it really isn't his fault that a psycho came after him. How could he have known that Harriet was a killer? That sort of randomness makes it easier for Roy to believe that it's his destiny to fail. The novel's all about his struggle to escape that destiny.
Quote #3
"I mistrust a bad ball hitter. [. . .] They sometimes make some harmful mistakes." (3.113-15)
Pop's assessment of Roy as a "natural" who swings at anything, even bad pitches, is sort of fateful in the context of the novel. When he says that sometimes bad ball hitters make harmful mistakes, we can guess that Roy is probably fated to make some harmful mistakes, like getting tangled up with Memo and taking the Judge's money to throw the game, for example.