What was going on when I was born?

The San Diego Padres completed one of the theatrical comebacks in playoff history today when they knocked out Rick Sutcliffe in the seventh inning, rallied to defeat the Chicago Cubs, 6-3, won their third consecutive game after two losses and captured their first National League pennant. They became the first team to win the league's playoff after dropping the first two games, and they did it before a record crowd of 58,359 in Jack Murphy Stadium against a pitcher who had won 15 games in a row since June 29. ''We had them by the throat,'' said Dallas Green, the general manager of the Cubs, ''and let them get away.'' Umpires Strike Is Over The Padres got away in the fifth game of a tingling match that also saw the major-league umpires end their strike for higher postseason pay. College and semipro umpires had officiated the playoffs in both the National and American Leagues until today, when both sides agreed to binding arbitration by Peter Ueberroth, the new commissioner of baseball. Four umpires who live in the San Diego area were quickly rounded up to call the game that decided the pennant. (Page C5).

Guests at Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza hotels are pampered with doorman and bellman service, the choice of dining in one of the hotels's two restaurants, a free morning newspaper, maid service in the evening - and help with entertainment, transportation, or secretarial needs. By contrast, when travelers check into a Hampton Inns hotel, a chain of ''no-frills'' hotels also owned by Holiday Inns Inc., they find no doormen, no bellmen, not even a restaurant. These new Holiday Inn hotels - one chain designed to appeal to the affluent, the other to the budget-conscious - exemplify a new development in the $29.7 billion hotel industry: product specialization, in which hotel companies create new lines of hotels with different features to appeal to different economic segments of the traveling public. Of course, there have always been cheap hotels and expensive hotels. But rarely have both been developed by the same companies, and never has the market been chopped up into so many segments.

Israel is willing to consider withdrawing its troops from Lebanon in return for a ''nonwritten'' Syrian commitment to keep its forces where they are and to prevent infiltration southward by Palestinian guerrillas, Israeli officials said today. The officials, speaking on the eve of Prime Minister Shimon Peres's visit to Washington, said that in exchange for a pullout, the Israelis would also insist on an expanded deployment of United Nations forces in southern Lebanon as well as a role for the Israeli-backed militia known as the South Lebanon Army. But, in contrast to their previous proposals, the Israelis are no longer insisting that Syrian troops withdraw from Lebanon, that there be a formal signed withdrawal accord, or that Israel get political concessions from the Lebanese Government, the officials said. U.S. Mediation Is Sought The officials, who are involved in the formulation of Israeli policy, said they believed the Israeli proposals were a realistic basis for negotiations with the Syrians and that Mr. Peres would try to enlist the Reagan Administration's help in playing some kind of mediation role with Damascus. The Israeli Prime Minister, who was in New York today, is to begin talks in Washington with Reagan Administration officials on Monday.

After a nearly three-week hiatus in the Treasury's note and bond financings, this week's auctions - $5.5 billion of seven-year notes and $4 billion of new 20-year bonds - do not seem to have put much upward pressure on interest rates. ''For the moment, with evidence of moderating economic growth rates, together with somewhat easier monetary conditions, we are enjoying a respite from interest-rate pressures,'' Thomas S. Johnson, president of Chemical Bank, said in a speech last week to the Financial Women's Association. Evidence of slower economic growth has already helped reduce the yield of the 30-year Treasury bond to around 12.18 percent, down from 12.6 percent in early September and 14 percent in late May. Short-term rates have also fallen. Three-month Treasury bills traded around 10 1/8 percent late last week, down from about 10 5/8 percent as recently as Sept. 4.

A decade is but a moment in the life of an empire that traces its origins to Solomon and Sheba. But in only 10 years since the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie, a new Ethiopia has been born. Guided by ''scientific socialism,'' Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam and the small circle of military men who rule have completed the structures that are transforming Ethiopia from a feudal monarchy into a Communist dictatorship. Western diplomats and Ethiopians interviewed in September said Colonel Mengistu, or Comrade Chairman Mengistu, as he is now called, was more firmly in control and stronger politically than ever before. The experts also agreed that for the foreseeable future, Ethiopia was likely to remain hostile to the United States and firmly allied to the Soviet Union, despite the country's dependence on huge donations of grain each year from the West.

New York City's retail business in September continued the slow trend of the prior three months, with an average gain among the seven largest retailers of only 4.5 percent over the year-earlier month, a spot check found late last week. When their suburban stores were included, the same stores showed a stronger average sales gain of 7 percent. As in the previous quarter, sales of durable goods, particularly furniture and consumer electronics, suffered the greatest decline, merchants said. But women's apparel was relatively strong amid the generally sluggish buying, they added. Men's wear, however, proved erratic, while women's accessories, including handbags, gloves and hosiery, were active.

The Paris automobile show is under way once again, attracting upward of a million people and enormous publicity. And much of the interest this year is in a smoothly snub-nosed offering by Renault known as the Supercinq, or Super Five. It is a car, many people say, that may make or break the Government- owned Regie Nationale des Usines Renault, which gambled about $400 million on its production. But not only Renault, the nation's largest car maker, is endangered. Many here believe the whole French automobile industry is losing its ability to survive.

''We got out the old favorite tool we've come to know and love so well.'' - John T. Cox, space shuttle flight director, referring to craft's robotic arm.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1984 International Israel would consider withdrawing its troops from Lebanon in return for a ''nonwritten'' Syrian commitment to keep its forces where they are and to prevent infiltration by Palestinian guerrillas, according to Israeli officials. Speaking on the eve of Prime Minister Shimon Peres's visit to Washington, the officials said that in exchange for a pullout, Israel would insist on an expanded deployment of United Nations forces in southern Lebanon. (Page A1, Column 2.) South Africa will use its army to support the police in combatting a wave of unrest in recent weeks that has claimed 80 lives in a crackdown on dissent. A police spokesman said army units had been deployed in Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg. Moreover, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange, said the civilian police would be expanded by 45 percent, apparently an acknowledgement that unrest was unlikely to abate. (A1:1.)

The rivals faced off obliquely on a theater stage that seemed set by Beckett, for the uttering of cosmic questions amid some simple props to lean on. The Federal deficit, the nature of leadership, belief in God, and the justification for abortion were put to the two candidates in rapid order, and both men sought to handle the subjects coolly. But by the simpler measure that television is watched by the groundlings at home, the echoing of a favorite punch line in a kind of oral tradition, there finally was the re-use by President Reagan of his celebrated 1980 debate line, ''There you go again.'' He used it one hour into the debate but only rather passively. Indeed, Mr. Mondale was ready for it, and within minutes had turned to face Mr. Reagan fully and ask him whether he recalled precisely how he used that punch line.

The obituary Saturday of Bruno Shaw, a writer and radio broadcaster, omitted the name of his wife, Regina, from the list of survivors.

One afternoon in June 1981, Akira Aimi was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge when two cables overhead, each 600 feet long and more than 2 inches thick, snapped. One tore a hole in the pedestrian footpath. The other swung out over the East River, curled back toward the bridge and fractured Mr. Aimi's skull. A week later, he died. In the hundred-year history of the Brooklyn Bridge, many people have died either building it, driving on it or jumping from it. But Mr. Aimi, a 32-year-old professional photographer, was apparently the first person to be struck down while walking across it.