What was going on when I was born?

I never grieve for the other team.'' Dave Johnson, Mets manager, speaking about Cubs' injuries, after New York completed a three-game sweep of Chicago. [C1:6.]

When Brian M. Freeman, an investment banker, is negotiating a deal, he bluffs, he demands and, very calculatingly, he sometimes insults his adversary to gain the upper hand. The clients he so tenaciously represents, however, are neither deep-pocket takeover artists nor multimillion-dollar corporations. Instead, they are labor unions whose members may be willing to make wage concessions in return for profit-sharing and stock ownership.

An item in the Sports World Specials column last Monday about the history of the mile and the 1,500-meter run misstated the results of Olympic 1,500-meter competitions. Athletes from English-speaking nations have won 14 such races, and those from other countries have won 6.

A small cloud of toxic chemicals escaped from a Union Carbide plant near here this morning, and at least 135 residents were treated for eye, throat and lung irritation. Twenty-eight of the injured were admitted to hospitals here..

Weak economic growth led to lackluster corporate earnings in the second quarter, with the bright spots overwhelmed by depressed profits in a wide range of industries. ''The profits picture was disappointing but not unexpected given the slow economy in general in the first half of the year,'' said Robert A. Gough, an economist at Data Resources Inc., the economic consulting firm. The nation's economy grew at only a 1 percent annual rate in the first six months of 1985 and at a 1.7 percent rate in April through June.

The Manville Corporation, which recently offered to pay $2.5 billion to settle asbestos health claims against the company, is in the midst of a program to sell or close some operations and slash costs. Manville filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Act in August 1982 not because of insolvency but in order to deal with mounting claims against it by workers who said that they had suffered from exposure to asbestos.

More and more, the Yankees find themselves thinking back these days. They still have seven games to whittle off the Toronto Blue Jays' lead in the American League East. But they can remember bigger deficits. ''We were 14 behind once,'' said Manager Billy Martin, thinking back to 1978, when the Yanks overcame Boston's 14 1/2-game lead to win the American League East pennant. ''So why worry when you're seven behind?''

A serious confrontation over Canada's growing lumber exports to the United States appears to be looming, with a flurry of legislation before Congress to limit shipments through duties or quotas. The main issue is contentions by members of Congress and the American lumber industry that Canadian companies are buying standing timber from provincial governments at unfairly subsidized prices.

International

Administration officials said today that President Reagan planned ''to set an agenda for the future'' in his November summit meeting with the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, said Secretary of State George P. Shultz and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, agreed on the format and some agenda items during their talks in Helsinki, Finland, two weeks ago, and reached an understanding on some issues.

Two months after it took effect, a tough new liquor law, backed up by a police crackdown, has brought a transformation in the social rituals of the Soviet Union. The law, which seeks in several ways to curb the debilitating effects of the Soviet Union's nationwide drinking problem, is also testing the ingenuity of drinkers who seek to evade it.

On a residential street in Murray Hill in Manhattan, the razor-edged coils of steel strike a jarring note. Ringing the top of a temporary scaffold on a 16-story luxury cooperative at the corner of Park Avenue and 39th Street, their message to would-be burglars is unmistakable. The tenants of the building, the Griffon, decided to have the coils installed to protect the second-story apartments from break-ins while the scaffold is up during repairs, according to the superintendent, Herb Bringslid.