The Year In Sports Media

37 What's Up, Docs?

Another year, another stupendous set of ESPN Films documentaries, picking up right where 30 for 30 left off in 2010. If we're splitting hairs, and if two hours is all you've got, then The Fab Five is the way to go. But all of this year's movies are worthy of your time (less so: Charismatic). Don't know where to start? Let this chart help guide your way.

--B.F.

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

38 Shameless Self-Promotion Interlude

These five stellar page-turners, from SI writers and photographers, or published by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED Books, deservingly flew off bookshelves and onto e-readers in 2011.

1:) Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football, by Neil Leifer; 2:) 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, by Kostya Kennedy; 3:) Scorecasting, by L. Jon Wertheim and Tobias J. Moskowitz; 4:) The College Basketball Book, by the editors of SI; 5:) The Swinger, by Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck

39 Game On

In the same year that 3D fatigue finally set in, one video game actually got it right. Released on 3DS, Nintendo's brilliant glasses-free handheld unit, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D delivered gameplay that lives up to the lofty standards of Konami's long-running soccer franchise (preferred over the FIFA series among the gaming cognoscenti). But it's the added 3D effect and heretofore impossible depth perception that make it one of the year's top sports titles. The roster of teams isn't without a few licensing hiccups—Liverpudlians have to settle for "Merseyside Red"—but the heady visuals and thoroughly addictive gameplay more than make up for it.

—B.A.G.