What was going on when I was born?

A headline in some editions of Sports Pages yesterday incorrectly identified the winner of the St. Francis-Fairleigh Dickinson basketball game. St. Francis beat Fairleigh Dickinson, 62-49.

''The possibility of national bankruptcy is a distinct possibility if we persist in unabated spending across the board.'' - Senator Barry Goldwater. (D16:4.)

A jury found yesterday that a 1983 Time magazine article - although it contained a false and defamatory paragraph - did not libel Ariel Sharon because the magazine did not publish it with ''serious doubts as to its truth.'' At 12:15 P.M., as tension heightened in the crowded courtroom of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, the jury announced its verdict, ending a dramatic trial that pitted one of Israel's top leaders against a major American news organization. The jury's foreman, Richard Peter Zug, also read an unusual statement by the jurors, amplifying the verdict and criticizing the correspondent who provided the disputed paragraph. 'Negligently and Carelessly' ''We find,'' he said, ''that certain Time employees, particularly correspondent David Halevy, acted negligently and carelessly in reporting and verifying the information which ultimately found its way into the published paragraph of interest in this case.'' The jury decided last week that the paragraph was defamatory and false. But the verdict yesterday ended the two-month libel trial.

Three of the country's biggest oil companies reported lower fourth- quarter earnings, reflecting the worldwide glut of oil and the period of warmer weather last year that touched off a slide in prices. The Exxon Corporation, the No. 1 oil company in the world, said its net in the final quarter dropped 11.7 percent. Its revenues also fell in the quarter by 1 percent. ''We knew it was a rough quarter,'' commented Barry Good, an oil analyst at Morgan Stanley & Company. ''It was more than rough. It was awful.'' He said the turbulence in the oil business shows no signs of abating, which could lead to further grim numbers. ''Conditions are terrible,'' Mr. Good said.

An official of the Army Corps of Engineers recommended yesterday that a crucial landfill permit be granted for Westway, the $2 billion highway and development project that has been stalled in litigation since it was proposed more than a decade ago to revive Manhattan's West Side. ''I think that Westway's time has probably come,'' said Col. Fletcher H. Griffis, the district engineer for the corps. ''All great projects need a period of gestation. Westway has certainly gestated.'' Governor Cuomo said that he was ''delighted'' by the recommendation and that he would soon create a new ''vehicle'' to oversee construction of Westway. The State Transportation Commissioner, James L. Larocca, said the construction could begin before next winter and was likely to last 10 years.

THE centenary of Jerome Kern's birth, which falls on Sunday, was already inspiring Kern enthusiasts to start celebrating as early as last fall. Sandy Stewart and Arthur Siegel spent September at Michael's Pub singing Kern's songs. And Town Hall marked the occasion of its reopening in October with a Kern Centenary Gala. The approach of the actual date, however, has let loose a flood of Kern musicals, films and salutes. A two-week showing of the composer's 18 films started last Sunday at the Regency Theater, Broadway at 67th Street. ''Lady Be Good'' and ''Swing Time'' are playing today and tomorrow and ''The Cat and the Fiddle'' and ''Show Boat '' on Sunday.

Treasury bond yields - a benchmark of interest rates - fell sharply again yesterday, hitting their lowest level since July 1983. Analysts said the decline is much different from the string of decreases in the second half of last year, because this time the Federal Reserve has not been easing monetary policy. Instead, the market is responding to the prospect of continued low inflation. The drop in yields, meanwhile, is bringing forth a wave of corporate bond issues.

Fiscally pressed public hospitals are increasingly being taken over by for- profit hospital chains, and the mixed results have touched off a sharp dispute among health professionals and public officials. As public institutions, these hospitals were often beset with deteriorating physical plants, obsolete equipment, the loss of physicians, declining occupancy, inadequate Federal and state funds, and constituents unwilling to raise their local taxes to pay for needed improvements. For many of these hospitals, the sale or lease to a chain was the only alternative to closing. But critics have asserted that, in the process of being taken over by chains, some public hospitals have not fulfilled their obligation under the law to treat the indigent at no cost or less than full cost. ''We are regressing, moving back from the Great Society days, and reneging on our commitment to the poor,'' said Dr. Arnold Relman, the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, who is a leading critic of the takeover of public hospitals by chains. ''Health care is being converted from a social service to an economic commodity, sold in the marketplace and distributed on the basis of who can afford to pay for it.''

A dozen years ago, Howard J. Hubbard was known as a street priest, a liberal fighter against the Establishment. Friday, his lawyers will go into court here to pose the first legal challenge in memory by a Roman Catholic bishop to the opening of an abortion clinic. Bishop Hubbard brought the suit in State Supreme Court here on Jan. 11 after Planned Parenthood received approval from the State Health Department to begin providing abortions at two of its clinics. Arguing that the department had conducted only a cursory investigation before approving the applications, the Bishop won an order blocking a final license until Friday's hearing.

Last fall, Union Carbide safety inspectors warned managers at the company's plant in Institute, W. Va., that a ''runaway reaction'' at a tank storing methyl isocyanate could lead to a ''catastrophic failure'' of the tank. The warning was made on Sept. 11, three months before methyl isocyanate escaped from a storage tank at a similar Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring thousands. The company did not respond today to queries to its headquarters in Danbury, Conn., about whether it had acted upon the report or transmitted its warnings and recommendations to Bhopal. Representative Robert E. Wise Jr., a West Virginia Democrat whose district includes the plant in Institute, said Warren Anderson, the chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, described the warning about the tank as ''a worst- case scenario.''

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1985 International A ''new danger'' in Central America, according to President Reagan, is arising from support for Nicaragua from Iran, Libya and the P.L.O. Mr. Reagan called support for the rebel forces seeking to oust the Marxist Government ''an act of self-defense.'' (Page A1, Column 6.) Spain's Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, said he was puzzled by Washington's decision to break off talks with Nicaragua. Mr. Gonzalez said that suspension of the talks had come at a ''moment of clear efforts of flexibility on Nicaragua's part'' and that Washington might be missing a ''historic opportunity.'' (A7:1-3.)

A cat resembling E. T. and bearing his name is in town from Paris to join 800 participants in an international cat show that opens this evening (5 to 10 P.M.) and continues Saturday and Sunday (9 A.M. to 6 P.M.) at Madison Square Garden. The extra-terrestrial lookalike has no hair or whiskers, huge ears that stick out from the sides of its head, wrinkly skin and an amiable disposition - a new breed called Sphinx that resulted from a mutation. E. T. will vie with cats of three other new but not officially recognized breeds. Most entries, however, are recognized breeds competing in five categories: pedigreed kittens, adults and altered cats, and nonpedigreed kittens and adult household pets. Admission: $6 ($4 for over-65's and under-12's). Information: 564-4400. A SPACE FESTIVAL