January 21, 1985

Shortly after the state's new Budget Director wrangled with commissioners over their spending proposals, a three-foot metal bar crashed through the ceiling of his office in the Capitol. Immediately - according to a story making the rounds here - the Director, R. Wayne Diesel, got on the phone to Commissioner John C. Egan, whose Office of General Services was overseeing construction on the floor above. ''John,'' Mr. Diesel said, ''are you trying to send me a message?'' Whether the story is apocryphal or not - aides in every agency tell a variation tailored to their own departments - there is no denying that plenty of people would like to say a thing or two to Mr. Diesel, a man putting the finishing touches on a budget of more than $35 billion that is the lifeblood of state government.

The San Francisco 49ers' near perfect season ended today with a near perfect performance in Super Bowl XIX. The 49ers, who lost only once all season, routed the Miami Dolphins, 38-16, to win their second National Football League championship in four seasons before a sellout crowd of 84,059 at Stanford Stadium. In so doing, the 49ers became the first team in N.F.L. history to win 18 games in one season, and they tied the record for most points scored in a Super Bowl. Joe Montana set a Super Bowl record with 331 passing yards and was voted the game's most valuable player, as he was in the previous 49er championship appearance, a 26-21 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI. Defense Minimized Marino But perhaps more importantly, the 49ers' defense, using an alignment that the Dolphins had seldom seen this season, held them to their fewest points of the season and minimized the impact of Dan Marino, their sensational quarterback.

Toward the end of a wearisome afternoon, Jeannine Michael toured the crowded corridors, counseling rooms and recovery area of the Eastern Women's Center, a Manhattan clinic that performed nearly 100 abortions that day. There Mrs. Michael, the clinic's director of counseling, studied the faces and listened to the voices of women who had just returned from a frightening half-hour Saturday in bitter cold on East 60th Street, where they had fled because of a telephoned bomb threat. ''They're all O.K.,'' Mrs. Michael said in the quiet of her office after no bomb had been found and people had returned to the clinic. ''By that I mean they're all coping. When you're in this field long enough, you get such great respect for women's strength.

Reagan Administration officials said today that, as part of the President's effort to reduce the deficit, they had decided to reduce Federal support for biomedical research this year below the levels intended by Congress. They said they had found a legal way to limit research spending to the amount proposed by Mr. Reagan last January, rather than the larger amount approved by Congress. The move, they said, apparently does not require approval by Congress, although legislators could write a new, more explicit law. The officials said the Administration would reduce the number of competitive grants awarded this year by the National Institutes of Health by 23 percent: to 5,000 from 6,500. The grants provide an average of $140,000 to $150,000 a year.

Five years ago, coffee drinkers who wanted to avoid caffeine had a very simple choice: Sanka or nothing. Today, happily for them, the decision is more complicated. With consumers increasingly health-conscious, decaffeinated coffee brands are proliferating, in instant form or as ground or unground beans. The product has established an identity and a market niche all its own. It is even earning manufacturers more per pound than standard coffee.