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Seth B.Leslie, I'm about your age and have thought about this, too. I have two points:
1. I'm also an enormous baseball fan and a SABR member. I will say this: despite the rise of popularity of the NFL and NBA, both probably now outpacing MLB, you don't see ginormous prices for early basketball and football memorabilia. All the major auction houses (Mastro, REA, Goodwin) now sell early stuff from other sports, but by a large margin the bulk of their material is baseball. I think this is that, though other sports may eclipse the MLB in general popularity, the demographic of MLB fans tend to have more disposable income, and this ready money will continue to float the collectibles market long after baseball's general popularity wanes. Basically, more urban kids want to grow up to be point gaurds, but they aren't the ones collecting high cost items in the first place.
2. I honestly think that in baseball's history there are enough times when the sport involves itself with the general current of American history that it vintage baseball will continue to hold the value that Americana does. You can see this in Jackie Robinson and the Civil Rights movement most clearly, but you can also see it in what we on this board collect and the early tobacco industry (the lifeblood of the American South), or the 19th century innovators and the Reconstructionist era (several famous early people associated with the game were Civil War vets). I think that it's these points of contact with the greater history of the country that make early baseball memorabilia vital and, I think, durably valuable.
-Seth
EDITED TO ADD:
Also, in response to Frank, I am all about the purity of collecting, and I agree with you wholeheartedly on principle. The only problem is that in order to get some of the neater (=more expensive) cards, you have to compete with people who don't feel that way, and that means you have to pay investor prices whether you're a collector or an investor. So, while I certainly buy to keep, and I buy what I like, when I spend a lot on a card, and that inflated price is due to other people speculating on the value, then I have to consider it a sound investment as well. Does that make sense? I like what you're saying in a vacuum, but prices are set by everyone, collectors and investors, and it's hard to rationalize paying big money for a card merely for the folly of collecting. Now, cheap items, those are a different story...