Second thoughts

This one goes out to the one who hits best

There are athletes who want to be musicians and there are musicians who want to be athletes.

Former R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills instead is an avid fantasy sports player.

“There is nobody I know who is into it like I am,” Mills told The New York Times.

Mills, 54, was a member of R.E.M. - which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 - for more than 31 years until the group’s breakup in 2011.

After R.E.M. disbanded, Mills decided to focus more on fantasy sports, a hobby which began a decade ago after leagues started shifting to the Internet.

“Why I love fantasy sports is, you can be competitive,” Mills said. “Get it out of your system.

“Also, to give my friends loads of grief. The whole point of this is bragging rights.”

Mills said that he plays fantasy sports on Yahoo Sports, including baseball, football and golf. Severalof Mills’ fantasy baseball team names are Upton No Good (based on the Atlanta Braves’ outfielders B.J. and Justin Upton), Big Bopper and Ruthian Blast.

Earlier this month, Mills participated in a fantasy Masters draft and joked during the draft to another player, “You don’t want Nicklaus?” when he picked an older golfer. His team featured Mark Leishman, Rory McIlroy and Jim Furyk. While Mills said he was “happy” with his team, McIlroy and Furyk finished tied for 25th.

Before playing fantasy sports,Mills filled out NCAA Tournament brackets. In 1999, he faxed his bracket from a European tour stop to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Of 1,116 entries, Mills’ entry was the winner in the Journal-Constitution’s annual contest.

Mills operates six Yahoo baseball leagues after adding two when the company increased its limit of teams from four. He told the Times that he doesn’t plan on quitting fantasy sports anytime soon, despite the possibility of scaling back his leagues.

“That would be the end of the world as he knows it,” Mike Tierney of The New York Times wrote.

Impressive, sir

A North Carolina man has rolled the first 900 series in Professional Bowlers Association history - three consecutive perfect games.

Joe Scarborough, a 50-year-old self-employed electrical contractor from Charlotte, N.C., opened the first round of qualifying in the PBA 50 Sun Bowl in The Villages, Fla., on Sunday with three games of 300, throwing 36 consecutive strikes.

He was competing in his second event in the renamed PBA Senior Tour and said his previous high three-game series was an 838 and he had bowled 14 previous 300 games.

Scarborough was a PBA member in 1991-2001 and twice bowled in PBA Tour events. He rejoined the PBA when he turned 50 in October.

Scarborough threw another strike to start his fourth game, but his streak ended at 37 when he left a split on his next shot.

Three consecutive sub-200 games knocked him out of the lead and into a tie for 12th place with 1,921 pins, 77 behind the leader, PBA Hall of Famer Mark Williams.

Quote of the day

“The great thing about

him is he’s a really good

player. The bad news is

there’s not a lot of him.” Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema on 165-pound cornerback Jared Collins

Sports, Pages 18 on 04/23/2013

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