Collecting baseball cards and memorabilia is a whole world unto itself. Topps has long been the company for baseball cards; they're also known to venture outside of the diamond for special-edition collectors cards, too.

As part of the 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter non-baseball collection, people like basketball player Kelly Oubre, author Malcolm Gladwell and actor Val Kilmer are found alongside none other than R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills.

Obviously, Mills was ecstatic about the honor and shared his excitement via Twitter:

Why was he included? Perhaps it's his All-American, guy next door persona, or maybe it's his bass playing skills in the Baseball Project, a band featuring R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate, Linda Pitmon and former Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey (who also worked with R.E.M. from 1994-2011):

Truth is, Mills is a lifelong baseball fan and had a dream come true when the Baseball Project played at the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this year. "That was a wonderful, wonderful night. To actually play in it was pretty special," he recently told Salon. "The stage is a replica of old Comiskey Park in Chicago, and you’ve got to figure the people there are baseball fans and will understand the songs, the subjects that we’re singing about. So it was a lot of fun."

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