August 15, 1982

WHEN the telephone rang one recent afternoon at Bobby Murcer's home, Kay Murcer chatted amiably with one of her husband's former teammates. Their 12-year-old son listened on an upstairs extension. After Mrs. Murcer hung up, Todd barrelled down the stairs and asked incredulously: ''Was that really Roger Maris?'' Mrs. Murcer was taken aback. Her husband and Maris last played together for the Yankees in 1966, four years before Todd was born. ''He keeps forgetting that Bobby knows those guys,'' Mrs. Murcer said, ''because it's hard to believe he played with them and he's still playing. I guess it jarred all our memories.'' The Murcers' memories are rich and deep, stretching through an 18-year career, including 14 1/2 years in the Yankee organization. He began in the Yankee farm system in 1964, the year the dynasty that was Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and the rest played in its last World Series. Bobby Murcer was a wide-eyed 18-year-old then, courting his childhood sweetheart from Oklahoma and polishing his skills in the Appalachian League.

VINCE DiBARTOLO held up a big, yellow tomato at Shop Wise, his fruit and produce market on Palisade Avenue in Englewood. ''This is supposed to be a Jersey Beefsteak - red and full of juice and flavor,'' he said with restrained disgust. ''It was picked four days ago in South Jersey, and is now here, trying to ripen into one of the beauties we used to get at this time.'' A few days earlier, an employee in the DiBartolo market cut a ripe Jersey tomato in half to show what he meant when he said that some tomatoes were giving a dismal performance this year - as of last week, at any rate.

Federal Judge Harold H. Greene stepped into unexplored legal territory last week when he asked for major changes in a settlement of the Justice Department's antitrust suit against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. While many thought his judicial activism in the complex case established a praiseworthy landmark, others thought he might have lost his way. His ruling left intact the basic quid pro quo the litigants agreed to in January: A.T.&T. would divest itself of its 22 Bell System operating companies, worth around $80 billion, in return for being allowed to enter data processing and other rapidly growing segments of the telecommunications business from which it has been barred. But Judge Greene added 10 modifications aimed largely at insuring the financial stability of the 22 operating companies when they become independent and keeping rates from soaring.

THERE are a variety of grants, tax credits and laws governing rents i n New York, New Jersey and Connecticut designed specifically to easet he burden of housing costs for low-income, elderly people. In New York City and some parts of Nassau, Rockland and Westchester Counties, there are provisions of the rent-control and rentstablization laws that exempt the elderly from most rent increases. There are also tax credits available to low-income elderly renters in New York and New Jersey; there is a similar tax program in Connecticut, but the elderly tenant receives a direct cash payment from the state. In New York State, a program to help poor tenants pay for heating costs will, in some cases, give bonuses to elderly renters.

VALHALLA INSIDE the large gatehouse of the Kensico Reservoir here, water racing through the giant sluice gates deep beneath the floor on its way to New York City sounds like endlessly-passing city subway trains. It is a sound that has been heard since 1915, when the brick and concrete gatehouse and the rest of the Kensico Reservoir was built. But beginning probably in October, another sound will join in: the hum of turbine generators. For the first time, the water racing through the subterranean chambers of the building will be harnessed to make electricity. The hydroelectric plant is one of two being built by the New York State Power Authority at New York City-owned reservoirs as part of a 1978 agreement with the city. The electricity the plants will produce - 7,750 kilowatts - is considered ''a drop in the bucket'' compared to the city's overall needs but will help reduce its dependence on imported oil by about 75,000 barrels a year. The number of kilowatts is equal to that used by 3,875 residential customers.