Mike Mills of REM: Master of Fantasy Sports
Mike Mills was the very likable bass player for REM for 30 years. When he wasn’t working with the band, he was watching sports very carefully. Today, he’s something of a ninja when it comes to fantasy sports. Even the New York Times has taken notice.
Mike Mills rose from a chair and strolled out to his car, but not to fetch a musical instrument to perform songs from the catalog of R.E.M., his seminal alternative-rock band. A fantasy draft of Masters golfers, involving Mills and a dozen others at a house not far from Augusta National Golf Club, had just concluded. And with baseball games in the East winding down, Mills was retrieving a laptop to take stock of his fantasy teams.
All six of them.
If Grammys were handed out for best, most passionate fantasy sports player in pop music, Mills, 54, would own the category. He juggles multiple teams of N.F.L. players, dabbles in the N.B.A. and is the commissioner of a 20-member golf collective that competes through the PGA Tour season. Hockey would be in the mix, but a league he once won enlisted too few renewals to continue.
“There is nobody I know who is into it like I am,” Mills said, sounding neither proud nor ashamed.
Continue reading. (Another good link from John.)
