Nice guys finish last

"Nice guys finish last."

Somebody told me that once a long time ago (maybe it was Kevin Arnold on "Wonder Years," I'm not certain).

If it's true, I must be one of the nicest darn guys you'll ever meet.

My fantasy baseball team's in last place.

Dead last.

It's an unenviable position - especially when it's a newsroom fantasy league, and you're the newspaper's fantasy sports "expert."

So what's gone wrong?

Well for starters, I currently have four players on the DL - not counting Cliff Lee, who just came off.

I've been without Jacoby Ellsbury, one of my five "keepers" entering the season and a starting OF, for a while now. And I just lost Brett Anderson, who was looking pretty good and for whom I had pretty high hopes this year.

I've suffered through some pretty awful - and I mean awful - pitching by Frank Francisco and Octavio Dotel, two of my "closers."

Didn't count on Adam Jones having 6 RBIs at this point either. Or Jason Bay one HR. Or Zack Greinke zero wins. Or Juan Pierre hitting .184, or Derrek Lee .217.

But it's not all bad.

Cliff Lee looked pretty good in his first start back from the DL, and hopefully he'll regain the Cy Young form I bargained for when I rolled the dice on him.

Ryan Zimmerman is going to have a great year if he can put his hamstring troubles behind him.

Hideki Matsui's been a bargain, and Casey McGehee's been a real find.

And Greinke's got to win a game sooner or later.

If he doesn't, I'm bound to stay stuck in last place for the long haul.

At least I'm a nice guy.

Manny being Manny ... and ruining fantasy teams

Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension after testing positive for a banned substance doesn't just hurt the Dodgers. It's a harsh blow for any fantasy team built around the slugging enigma.

Manny's been on a tear ever since donning Dodger Blue late last year, and he was off to a stellar start in 2009: .348, six homers, 20 RBIs. Those numbers won't easily be replaced; L.A. will probably turn to Juan Pierre as their everyday left fielder, which is the equivalent of canceling American Idol and running some old Bosom Buddies reruns in its place.

Manny's absence from the lineup also creates problems for some other Dodgers hitters, particularly young Andre Ethier (.317, six homers, 27 homers), who's been enjoying a breakout season batting third in front of Ramirez. Think he'll be seeing as many good pitches without Man-Ram on deck? You might expect a bit of a drop in his stats, at least until around the All-Star break when Manny is due to return.

And speaking of bosom buddies, now that the door has been opened to possible steroid use by Ramirez, it's only natural for the spotlight to drift onto Manny's days in Boston, when he and pal David Ortiz were terrorizing the league. (ESPN columnist and resident BoSox diehard Bill Simmons has an excellent take on it.) If this wasn't simply a "personal health issue" or doctor's mistake but rather the deliberate use of a substance often associated with steroid use, one could reasonably assume this isn't the first time Ramirez has used performance enhancing drugs, and thus we could also figure some of his former Red Sox teammates have juiced in the past.

Might that explain the stunning and precipitous drop in Ortiz's stats the past few years? We may never know, and perhaps it's unfair to associate Big Papi with cheating, but I'd definitely be concerned with Ortiz's decline and be looking to deal him if possible, especially in light of Thursday's bombshell.