I got ESPN: The Magazine from a school fundraiser, as I hear is a popular choice. I recently renewed my subscription for this bi-monthly (every 2 Fridays I get a copy) magazine.

The Mag, as it likes to call itself, is a better read than Sports Illustrated in my mind. I personally find SI too pretentious. It seems to know that it's the best magazine for sports out there. Although I concede one point, The Mag doesn't have a swimsuit issue! The most eye candy it has had in months was 1) Olympic beach volleyball pictures and 2) Olympic girls wrestling photos, which goes to say there isn't much and at most it's once every four years (don't think the female ice hockey team wears revealing outfits).

The Pros
Some really good articles. In the past few months, it made Clinton Portis of the Denver Broncos and Darcy Tucker, Toronto Maple Leafs goon, seem like pretty good guys. It features in-depth articles on a lot of players, including Miguel Cabrera and Eric Gagne within the past few months. The articles The Mag has regarding the previews of the upcoming seasons are always good. This magazine comes from the pioneers of sports knowledge, so you know they know everything about every finger of every player of every sport in America... and Canada... and apparently the Dominican Republic. This past week's issue features a huge preview on the NFL and last week had a huge preview of college football. They also offer big fantasy issues for football and baseball before the season starts.

The Mag also has a nice pre-article section. The letters page is lacking, but they have good articles by Bill Simmons, Dan Patrick (doing absurdly funny interviews of players), and The Sports Guy. A section called The Jump has the best article in the magazine, and The Jump also has random stats and other goodies a sports nut loves.

Not all of the articles are of big-time players. Recently an issue featured the death of a high school player in Montana in a piece describing how some think metal bats should be eliminated in favor of safer, more expensive wood bats. The Mag also has some great in-your-face pictures.

The Cons
College football has replaced hockey as the #4 sport in the minds of ESPN, both in The Mag and on SportsCenter and ESPNews. Granted, there may not be a season come October 2004, but even when they are playing, it isn't featured often. The Mag has probably 4 or 5 featured articles per issue, and hockey is rarely one of them. If it is, it's a one page short as opposed to the 6-page Barry Bonds feature on the next page and the 6-page Terrell Owens feature on the pages before.

However, I can't fully complain, because when they do talk about hockey, it's really informative and the hockey preview last year was simply fantastic. In-depth, knowledgeable, and incredibly useful, with Peter Forsberg on the cover. As you can tell, I'm a big hockey fan.

Recommended: Yes