Loyalties old and new

Yes, that's Thierry Henry in home colors.

Not Arsenal home colors, but Barca home colors.

While Gio and Guily, my old favorites, are gone.

This is the thing that always got me as a kid, when I'd follow the Padres and the Chargers (almost religously). I couldn't comprehend how a player could be "sold" to another team. Because....it was a Team. A Home Team. I stopped following the Padres when Steve Garvey came to play first base. How could they let a Dodger on the team? It was all blasphemous to me.

I understand economics of sports marginally better now, but the logic of markets doesn't apply to the irrational logic of loyalty, and doesn't assuage the idealist in me much more than it did when I was 9 or 10. It will take while to get used to this very new team.