April 7, 1991

AFTER decades of anxiety over the health risks of lead-based paint in older American homes, a spate of suits, court rulings, Government reports and medical studies is raising broad new fears over the extent of the problem and the huge cost of removing the threat. Health experts say the paint, which contains lead as a pigment, is emerging as one of the most pervasive environmental hazards in the nation. A study by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, released in December, found that two-thirds of the privately owned homes and apartment buildings constructed before 1980 -- 57 million dwellings in all -- contained lead-based paint.

Major league umpires stopped working yesterday and do not plan to work regular-season games beginning with tomorrow's opening-day schedule. The umpires' lawyer said the umpires were being locked out; the owners' chief negotiator said the umpires were engaged in a work stoppage. Whatever the terminology in the game of labor-strife semantics, amateur ("alternate," according to the leagues) umpires are scheduled to man the season-opening games in eight cities while major league umpires meet in Chicago to determine when and where to establish picket lines.

ON the West Side of Bridgeport, the Bon Ton used to be the favorite sports bar. Every night, blue-collar customers crowded into the place, where two television sets allowed them to cheer the Mets and Yankees at the same time. Those who preferred a more quiet evening sought sanctuary, and a few hands of pinochle, in the Bon Ton's Casino Room. Matthew Kentosh, who was the district's alderman 20 years ago, said he remembers the Bon Ton this way for decades, through the mid-1980s. Like other neighborhood bars, including Duke's and Nagy's, the Bon Ton was an "old Irish" place, he said, where that description fit the owner and the patrons.

WILLIAM CULLINA was a nature lover as a child, he said, growing his own garden from the time he was 6 years old and later teaching his friends to take care of the environment. He grew up and earned a psychology degree, but now the 26-year-old Mansfield Center resident is back at the University of Connecticut pursuing a degree and certification as a landscape architect. Another UConn student, Kelly Tharaldson, 20, of Windsor Locks, started a campus club, Student Educational Network for the Appreciation of Animals, which she called her answer to animal-rights groups. She said that she, too, loves animals, but added that she sees the need to use them in farming and in research. The club is finishing a teaching videotape and coloring book "aimed at educating children and teachers about animal use and about the world of farming in general," she said.

On a gleaming spring day in Florida 50 years ago, Joe DiMaggio, eager as usual to get to work, received a traffic ticket for speeding. As things turned out, so the exaggeration goes, it was the only time that the New York Yankees' center fielder was stopped during that enchanted year. DiMaggio's elegant presence and 56-game hitting streak were hardly the only reasons that 1941 merits inclusion in any baseball time capsule. That summer, as the United States edged toward entry into World War II, the game produced a blend of grand-scale heroics from Ted Williams and his .406 batting average, Bob Feller, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Pete Reiser, Tommy Henrich, Whitlow Wyatt, Cecil Travis, Country Slaughter, Johnny Vander Meer, Leo Durocher and Dixie Walker.