October 13, 1985

THREE years ago, Edward S. Finkelstein was riding high. As chairman and chief executive of a resurgent R. H. Macy & Company, he was heralded widely for transforming a drab and sluggish company into the nation's most dramatically successful department store chain. His ''merchandising miracle,'' as some dubbed it, had turned New York's largest department store into a model for department stores everywhere and seemed to change the face of American retailing. His strategy was bold and expensive. He tried to lure growing legions of young, affluent and fashion-conscious customers with chic merchandise, abundant inventories, and heavy discounting. And he did so dramatically: On the showroom floor, he injected a touch of theater into the routine of retailing. But in the last year, Ed Finkelstein's triumph at the 127-year-old company has begun to falter. Now, the industry's creative guru may be fighting the toughest battle of his career.

Ralph Kramden read, or at least bought, The New York Herald-Tribune. He and his wife, Alice, previously thought to have been childless for their entire 15-year marriage, once adopted a baby girl. Edward L. Norton survived as an ''engineer of subterranean sanitation'' in part because he had no sense of smell, and, though he tried to hide it, his middle name was ''Lillywhite.'' These are not the only startling revelations to emerge from the ''lost'' episodes of ''The Honeymooners,'' which, after languishing for 30 years in Jackie Gleason's personal vault, are now on the air. Long before Ralph became petrified on camera while trying to sell kitchen utensils and playing the ''$99,000 Answer,'' for instance, he had a similar experience pitching Choosy-Chew candy bars. Trixie and Ed eloped. And while the Kramdens' bedroom must remain forever unseen, viewers have at last established conclusively that it contained a double bed. When the 67 ''new'' old ''Honeymooners'' episodes were unearthed earlier this year, the event was compared by aficionados to the discovery of a new Mozart symphony -or a trunkful of them. After all, only 39 episodes of ''The Honeymooners,'' all filmed during the 1955-56 season, were ever pre-pared specifically for syndication, and those are the ones that have been broadcast, again and again and again, ever since.

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 12 - Back home on their slick green carpet after two straight losses, back home in the fast lane, the St. Louis Cardinals finally flashed their speed today and defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-2, for their first victory in the playoff for the National League pennant. It was a game dominated by the Cardinals' speed and marked by the Dodgers' obsession with the Cardinals' speed. It was spiced by pickoff throws and pitchouts and two pickoff throwing errors, and a record total of 13 bases on balls. And it was decided in the first two innings when the renowned ''rabbits'' of St. Louis bedeviled Bob Welch and raced into a 4-0 lead. After that, Danny Cox pitched four-hit ball into the seventh inning to protect the lead, and then turned it over to three members of the Cardinals' bullpen ''committee.'' And, with the help of a pair of dazzling plays at third base by Terry Pendleton, they finished what the sprinters had started.

IT is harvest time on Long Island, and for potato farmers, it looks like a dismal year. Potato yields are up, and prices paid to farmers are way down, $1.75 to $2 for 100 pounds. Moreover, prices usually decrease as the harvest progresses. For Long Island potato farmers, bad years are not all that uncommon, and even the worst are not always considered to be catastrophic. ''This particular year, in and of itself, will not drive us out of business,'' said John White Jr., whose family has been farming the Sagaponack area for 200 years. ''But there's been a cumulative effect. Seven out of the last 10 years, we haven't turned a profit.''

THE Soviet Union, which differs with the United States on the Middle East situation as on most others, gave Washington startling support for its handling of the latest hijacking. Tass, the official press agency, said: ''The Americans' anger at the hijackers' crime aboard a cruise liner is understandable and just.