There is no solid moral purchase to find on the matter of how athletes are disposed of once they’re no longer needed—anybody care to discuss Josh Hamilton’s role as the pariah in Arte Moreno’s morality tale? But the hard fact of it, under the specific little tragedies, is that there’s nothing particularly notable about Romero’s story. Athletes are paid to win, goes the argument. But also: this is an actual human who was paid to do a thing until it seemed like he wasn’t very good at doing that thing anymore, at which point the employer said, publicly, “We don’t think you’re worth our money anymore, and we can’t use you, but maybe somebody else will?”

— “Odds Against, or The Ballad of Ricky Romero,” for Vice Sports