September 19, 1983

TOM SEAVER, who won 16 games as a rookie 18 years ago, sat on the stool in front of his locker in Shea Stadium reading a list of performances by some famous rookies. He was dazzled. ''Hey, Straw,'' he said, calling across the room to Darryl Strawberry. ''Come over here, and I'll make you sick. Look at these numbers.'' Strawberry, pulling a pair of batting gloves around his wrists, was wary. He finally walked over, and Seaver started to recite: ''Joe DiMaggio, 1936. Guess what he hit? Would you believe .323 with 29 home runs and 125 runs batted in? Would you believe 206 hits?

International Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, put his troops in Lebanon at the disposal of the Syrians and the Druse. The fighting in Lebanon widened, with anti-Government militiamen shelling the Lebanese Air Force base in the north of the country. The Lebanese Army appeared to be holding the small advances it had made it in its attempt to seize a strategic mountain ridge overlooking Beirut. (Page A1, Column 6.) Confirmation that P.L.O. guerrillas were in Lebanon's Shuf Mountains supporting the Druse militia against the Christian militia and the Lebanese Army came from Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He said that fighters from his group had been in the area before Israel withdrew its troops and that other Palestinians were in the area as ''volunteers.'' (A14:1.)

The Soviet Union has bought more grain from the United States - 250,000 metric tons of wheat and 125,000 tons of corn - for delivery in 1983-84 under terms of a long-term agreement signed last month, according to the Agriculture Department. That pushed the estimated value of Moscow's purchases since Sept. 1 - the day a Soviet fighter shot down a South Korean jetliner - to more than a half billion dollars. At current grain prices at the farm, the latest sales would be worth about $49 million. Sales so far under the new agreement are worth an estimated $575 million, according to current prevailing prices.

''I was chosen because I was qualified for the position. The fact that I was black was not a factor.

For a man who presided over the most spectacular financial collapse in Chilean history, who is caught in a tangle of lawsuits and who owes hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign and domestic banks, Javier Vial seems remarkably relaxed and self-confident. From his suite atop Santiago's tallest skyscraper, which he himself built just two years ago, Mr. Vial presides over a tottering empire of more than 50 mines, farms, paper mills, factories, fishing fleets, retail chains and other enterprises. The Government has taken over management of his bank and mutual funds, yet he remains certain that he will not only be able to stay out of jail, but that one day the group he forged will re-emerge as a powerful financial force. ''If you were to liquidate our assets today, you would find that they would not produce enough money to pay off our $650 million in debts,'' the 49-year-old Mr. Vial conceded in an interview this week. ''But in a space of 3 to 10 years from now, we will be in a position to meet all our obligations and begin showing profits again.''