Small thing that says a lot: the weird economy around retired baseball guys on Cameo. Some of these names were on cereal boxes when I was a kid and now they're charging 35 bucks to tell your cousin happy birthday from a hotel lamp setup. I don't even mean that as a joke at their expense. Sports burns through people and then acts shocked when nostalgia becomes a side hustle. We treat athletes like they're set for life because they had a card in a shoebox somewhere, but a lot of pros had short careers, bad advice, injuries, divorces, taxes, all of it. If anything feels bleak, it's not the Cameos. It's how fast fans move on while still expecting permanent legend status on discount.