April 12, 1981

Gene Michael, the Yankees' rookie manager, didn't waste any time finding the home run button at Yankee Stadium. On opening day Thursday, Michael professed to be nervous, but he managed to keep his finger on the button long enough for Bucky Dent to hit a three-run homer and for Bobby Murcer to hit a pinch-hit grand slam. Obviously calmer yesterday, the manager pushed the button three times in the first three innings, and Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph and Oscar Gamble responded with homers that powered the Yankees past the Texas Rangers, 5-1. Tommy John, despite his wildness, benefited from the homer barrage Thursday, and Rudy May, a bit nervous, was the beneficiary yesterday as he added a victory to the eight-game winning streak with which he completed the regular season last year. Rich Gossage made his first 1981 appearance by pitching the ninth inning and he pitched it the way he pitched most of the time last year - awesomely. He retired Buddy Bell on a fly to right field and he struck out Billy Sample and Johnny Grubb.

IT may not be like the glorious 60's, when a driver could buy a half tank of gasoline for pocket money, with balloons, beer mugs or soda pop thrown in. But for the long suffering American motorist, his psyche scarred in recent years by periodic shortages and relentless price increases, it's welcome relief indeed. All over the country, gas stations in the last few weeks have been shaving prices in response to what almost everybody but oil executives is calling a glut. The outlook for the summer driving season, barring a major supply interruption, hasn't been so bright in years. Although there's little reason to expect that prices will drop substantially, there are signs at least that the upward spiral has stalled for now. The softening, while limited, stands in contrast to the sharp jump in prices during the first quarter. President Reagan's decontrol of domestic crude oil prices added perhaps 10 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline this year. Increases from a price rise in December by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries contributed a similar amount, and several states are pushing the price up by increasing gas taxes.

''IN the case of the shuttle, you don't fly without the computer system,'' an official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said recently. That is perhaps the simplest explanation of what happened last week. To the chagrin of NASA technicians wary of failures in machinery, it was a computer glitch that kept the space shuttle Columbia's 4.5-million-pound, 184-foottall bulk firmly earthbound on Friday. The disappointment was palpable among the million or so spectators at Cape Canaveral, Fla., as the space agency decided to delay the historic flight at least 48 hours - time enough, it turned out, for engineers to track down the problem and correct it, and for agency officials to schedule another launching attempt for this morning. Columbia's astronauts, John W. Young and Navy Capt. Robert L. Crippen, flew jet training landings yesterday, and a new countdown was begun late in the day despite at least one remaining uncertainty - the weather, which had turned cloudy and threatened the possibility of further postponement.

Barring Soviet military intervention, the likely next phase in the workers' revolution in Poland will not be a struggle against the Communist Party but a struggle within the party itself. The outcome will be crucial -probably more important than anything that has happened so far - in determining how far Poland will go in its remarkable dash for more freedom and democracy. The shape of the struggle is clear as the party prepares for elections for delegates to an extraordinary party congress. If the party is allowed to hold the congress, which is supposed to occur before July 20, the current leadership will almost certainly be swept away and a new group installed, liberal and reform-minded beyond anything Eastern Europe has seen. The country's path toward a kind of really ''democratic'' socialism will be fixed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- George Howe Colt is a freelance writer with a special interest in theater. By GEORGE HOWE COLT One evening recently, Mickey Rooney, the star of ''Sugar Babies,'' invited a friend to see the long-running musical at the Mark Hellinger - from center stage. In the middle of a sketch, Mr. Rooney, playing a disgruntled hotel patron, skittered out of a doorway, suitcase in one hand, surprise guest in the other. Mr. Rooney's friend yanked up his T-shirt, stuck out his tongue and leered into the footlights. The actor playing the hotel clerk, who had the next line, flinched, but recovered quickly: ''Pardon me, sir, I didn't know you had company,'' he called out as Mr. Rooney hustled his friend Buddy Hackett offstage. Just when the cast of ''Sugar Babies'' thought they had seen it all, Mr. Rooney had slipped them another surprise and put everyone on their toes once more.