This is factually correct. But it is also about as lame as it gets.

Dusty's quote: “These start times, you don’t know whether to eat, go to sleep, use the bathroom or shower. You have to set your alarm clock different days and times...It’s like working night shift, day shift, swing shift.”

Sorry, doesn't wash. The Nats started the season with three at home, then three in Philly (a five-minute bus trip) then six at home. In those 12 games they also had two days off. So, their first dozen games were as easy as it gets: home or in Philly.

Now they get a day off before three in Atlanta. Excuse me, DAY OFF. So, the three in Atlanta are a piece of cake. That's a 15-game sweetheart schedule. They played some 4 p.m. games. The other teams had to play at 4 pm, too.

Then they have to fly from Atlanta to NYC. The poor babies! This happens ALL the time. play a night game, fly 3-31/2 hours, get in late and SLEEP 10+ hours if you want because it's night game on Friday in New York.

These guys should try schedules of the beat writers who are covering them! Chelsea and Jorge are working MUCH harder than any of the Nats in terms of total hours worked, bad schedules, tough flights, sleep deprivation and bad deadlines. They should be ashamed to WHINE, face to face, to people whose work ethic shames theirs. Beat writers get to the park for a 7 p.m game at least 4 1/2 hours early and file early stories for the web. They don't even START their final story on the game until about 45 minutes AFTER the game when they've interviewed everybody. The players often get to the park an hour after the writers and are sometimes in BED when the writers are still in the press box. When the players travel, they go in BUSES to the airports __everything scheduled for them. Hey, take a nap. Who do you think schedules the writers' travel? Us.

Nobody works as hard as a baseball beat writer. I did it for nine years. Now, I don't work nearly as hard as they do. But I'll give you an example. I always go to the Masters early on Wednesday afternoon, land in Atlanta, drive 150 miles to Augusta and get to the house where several us have stayed for many years. No problem. This year, with tornadoes and gale-force winds in Georgia, my Thursday flight was canceled and every other flight that day. So I booked a 6:15 a.m. flight to Atlanta on Thursday morning. The agent said, "Oh, you are THAT flexible?" I said, "I'm a newspaper reporter. I have to get there." I drove home, found out that my boyhood hero Roy Sievers had died, so I rustled up an appreciation of him for the Post to run on the web by 5 p.m.

Then I got up at 3:15 a.m. on Thursday, got to the airport at 4-45 a.m., flight canceled again. Two-thirds of the whole "departures" board was "canceled." As I stood in line, word filtered back that NO AIRLINE at that airport had a flight, even with one seat, available until SATURDAY morning. By the time I got to the head of the line, 75 minutes, I had used my phone to change my flight to Charlotte (leaving at 8:15 a.m.), rented a car in Charlotte, canceled the rental car in Atlanta and helped the family of four behind me in line, who were going to their first Masters and were almost in tears (well, one of the kids anyway) that they didn't know how they would ever get there, to switch everything the way I had. Of course, I made sure that I got MY ticket to Charlotte, and also got checked in and seat assigned, before I let them know about the flight. Then I got to Charlotte and drove 175 miles to Augusta (I will not reveal my speed) in 30 mph cross winds.

I got to my seat in the press room in Augusta before 1 p.m. __less than two hours later than if I'd never had any flights canceled and had done exactly what I do every year when I leave on Wednesday. I was there well before anything happened that was part of my assignment, Dustin Johnson hadn't withdrawn yet and Jordan Spieth hadn't teed off. I filed my column at 7 p.m., an hour ahead of my deadline. I wasn't particularly tired and it was a good column though I suppose you could say it was written at the end of a 16-hour day. I did sleep well. By last Monday, after we had our chat, in the previous nine days I'd written seven columns, done two chats, covered two Nats games and four rounds of golf at Augusta and driven >500 miles on the job. And when I got home, I watched tape of every Nats, Caps and Wiz game that I'd missed while covering other things.

This is NORMAL in my job. It's expected. It's not nearly as tough as the travel, deadlines and everything else in September and October. By the time I got back from the Masters I felt rested.

And I'm not one of the harder-working people in our sports department.

Now I'm supposed to listen to 24-year-old Bryce Harper and a bunch of other Nats whine because they have ONE tough travel day in the first FIVE WEEKS of their season? The only hard game they have is flying from New York to Colorado on April 24th after a flight from NYC to Denver. Even then they have >21 hours between the end of one game and the start of the next.

What happens when the Nats get home from this trek worthy of T.E. Lawrence or Gertrude Bell exploring uncharted parts of the Arabian desert on camels for months at a time?

They have 16 of the easiest (travel) games you ever saw, 11 at home and 5 in Baltimore or Philly where they could ride their bikes to the games.

Buck up, you wimps.