In its first year of postseason baseball, Turner Sports couldn't approach the excellence of its NBA coverage. And so TBS is tinkering as it prepares to air four first-round series next week and the American League Championship Series in two weeks.

Frank Thomas, nicknamed the ''Big Hurt,'' became the ''Big Bore'' in TBS' studio last October and was not invited back. (Neither was game analyst Steve Stone.)

Meanwhile, Tony Gwynn, who was part of

the lead announcing team last season with Chip Caray and Bob Brenly, will work only a first-round series. TBS asked WGN's Brenly to return, but he had a family commitment.

And so TBS instead will use Ron Darling and Buck Martinez, with Caray, on the ALCS.

Also, Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson and former pitcher Dennis Eckersley join returnees Ernie Johnson and Cal Ripken Jr. in the studio during the first round. Former ESPN analyst Harold Reynolds works in the booth during the first round and replaces Granderson in studio during the ALCS.

Two of TBS' signature hires, Caray and Ripken, were shaky last October. Caray made several mistakes and spoke excessively. Ripken generally stated the obvious and lacked energy in his delivery. ``I feel

a whole lot more comfortable,'' Ripken said

Thursday.

Besides Granderson, TBS also will use Braves pitcher John Smoltz, who always has provided thoughtful answers in interviews.

''There were some mistakes we made,'' Turner Sports executive producer Jeff Behnke said of last year's playoff coverage, while also noting he was ``extremely proud of many things. One advantage [this year] is we had 26 weeks of Sunday regular-season games.''

That Sunday package essentially replaced Braves games on TBS this year.

• Fox will televise the NLCS and World Series, with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

• Jeff Conine was very good filling in for Marlins analyst Tommy Hutton last weekend on FSN Florida and would be a smart hire for The Baseball Network, which launches in January. The Marlins, who expect all of their announcers back, say they don't have a broadcasting gig available for Conine, who isn't interested in doing a lot of traveling.

• Fox wanted to carry

Saturday's Marlins-Mets and Yankees-Red Sox games as part of its 3:55 p.m. regional coverage, and it planned to show the Mets on one of two Fox-owned stations in New York and the Yankees on the other.

But the New York teams expressed a preference not to play at the same time. So Fox chose Yankees-Red Sox, believing it would generate higher ratings even though the Mets game will have greater playoff implications.

That means FSN Florida keeps the Marlins-Mets game at 1:10 p.m.

AROUND THE DIAL

• Sid Rosenberg, whose 790 morning show beat WQAM's in the last ratings book, said he spoke to his former employer, WFAN in New York, and its popular afternoon host Mike Francesa, about potentially joining Francesa's show. But no offer was made, and Rosenberg said: ``I don't know what they're going to do.''

Francesa -- whose longtime cohost, Chris Russo, recently left for a job on Sirius XM Radio -- is speaking to numerous potential candidates, Rosenberg said. Although Rosenberg has ''less than three years'' on his

790 contract, the station likely would not block his move to New York if something materialized.

• So let's get this straight: WPLG-10 refuses to run scores and sports news on a continuous scroll -- something it did several years ago. Yet WPLG, during part of its Sunday night sports show, runs a scroll with random thoughts sent via text message by viewers, signed only with the viewer's first name.

It's one thing to devote a short segment to viewer text messages. But it's distracting and ridiculous to run them, one after another, in a scroll, when WPLG instead could use the space to offer scores and sports news.

• It's rare to see networks take shots at each other, but the rules are different for Frank Caliendo's wickedly funny segment on Fox's pregame show. Last Sunday, Caliendo -- impersonating Andy Rooney -- said of CBS' pregame: ``They're like lucky freshmen. They don't have chemistry.''

Then he said the CBS cast is so boring that ''the CBS eye closes when they're on.'' And in a playful shot at Bob Costas' height, Caliendo said NBC's show doesn't have six people but ``really 5 ½.''

• ESPN gets Saturday's big Georgia-Alabama game -- leaving CBS with the less attractive Auburn-Tennessee game -- because under the current SEC contract, ESPN can reserve a few games before each season using ''priority picks.'' But ESPN will not get those priority picks under CBS' new SEC deal starting next season. . . .

WFOR-4 and WQAM sportscaster Kim Bokamper is opening Bokamper's Sports Bar and Grill this weekend in Plantation, at the corner of Peters and Pine Island. . . . Fox said it plans to discuss the Dolphins during a segment of Sunday's noon pregame show and demonstrate why their running game worked so well against the Patriots.

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