A roundup of the week Oct. 20-27

BASEBALL—The NEW YORK METS defeated the Boston Red Sox 8-5 to win the World Series four games to three (page 16).

BOXING—MIKE McCALLUM retained his WBA junior middleweight title with a ninth-round KO of Said Skouma, in Paris.

Rickey Parkey took the IBF cruiserweight title from Lee Roy Murphy, a fellow American, with a 10th-round KO, in Marsala, Italy.

PRO FOOTBALL—As the NFL season reached the halfway point, the Los Angeles Rams moved into first place in the NFC West as RB Eric Dickerson rushed for 170 yards and threw his first TD pass in a 14-7 win over Atlanta. Dickerson leads the league with 1,030 yards rushing. QB Jim McMahon returned to the lineup to keep Chicago on top in the NFC Central with a 13-7 victory over Detroit. The Bears have won 22 straight in games he has started. The only Chicago TD in that game came when LB Wilber Marshall sacked QB Eric Hippie to force a fumble that Marshall recovered and ran in for the score. Another returning QB was Danny White, starting for the first time in a month, who led Dallas to a 37-6 win over St. Louis. He got help from Herschel Walker, who rushed for 120 yards and scored twice. The Los Angeles Raiders, who began the season with three straight losses, have returned to last season's form, as they downed Houston 28-17 for their fifth straight win. QB Marc Wilson, playing without the injured RB Marcus Allen, threw four TD passes—three to TE Todd Christiensen—and the defense had six sacks and four interceptions. The New York Jets, who had handed Denver its first loss of the season in a 22-10 game the previous Monday night, stayed on top in the AFC East with a 28-23 win over New Orleans. Ken O'Brien, the league's most accurate passer, connected with WR Al Toon, the league's leading receiver, for three TDs. Denver rebounded from that Monday night loss with a 20-13 victory over Seattle to take a two-game lead in the AFC West. QB John Elway passed for 321 yards, and the Bronco defense held Seattle QB Dave Krieg to 26 passing yards. QB Dan Marino passed for 243 yards as Miami edged winless Indianapolis 17-13. Miami has now beaten the Colts in 13 consecutive meetings. Green Bay QB Randy Wright threw three interceptions in a 31-17 loss to San Francisco, and two of them landed in the hands of safety Ronnie Lott, who leads the league in interceptions. Lott returned the second steal 55 yards to give San Francisco a lead it never relinquished. Pittsburgh rebounded from last week's shutout by the Pats—the Steelers' worst ever at Three Rivers Stadium—with a 30-9 upset of the Bengals behind a 200-yard combined rushing performance by Earnest Jackson and Walter Abercrombie. Kansas City, ranked last in offense, faced Tampa Bay, ranked last in defense, and the result was a sloppy 27-20 win for the Chiefs. Earlier in the week the Buccaneers released veterans Kevin House (WR), Jimmie Giles (TE) and Ron Springs (RB). New England routed Buffalo 23-3, small consolation for New England sports fans still recovering from Saturday night's baseball game. Cleveland rallied from a 17-3 half-time deficit to edge Minnesota 23-20 on a field goal by Matt Bahr with 1:46 on the clock. And San Diego, thrashed 23-7 by the Eagles, suffered its seventh straight loss.

GOLF—BEN CRENSHAW shot a 14-under-par 196 to defeat Payne Stewart by one stroke to win $180,000 in a rain-shortened 54-hole PGA event in San Antonio. Earlier in the week five-time British Open champion Tom Watson disqualified himself for the first time in his career after violating a PGA rule by changing golf clubs in the middle of a round.

HARNESS RACING—JEF'S SPICE ($5), with Bill O'Donnell in the sulky, beat Armbro Ermine by 1¼ lengths to win $205,997 and the Breeders Crown 3-Year-Old Filly Trot at Freehold Raceway. Odds-on favorite Britelite Lobell finished fourth. Eight of the 12 winners on the card were driven by John Campbell to equal a harness racing record.

HOCKEY—In the Patrick Division, two opponents from Pennsylvania squared off for bragging rights to their turf—for this week, anyway. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were both undefeated going into Thursday's game at The Spectrum, where Pittsburgh hadn't won since 1974. Pittsburgh, with a 5-4 overtime win against Buffalo the night before, had set a team record for consecutive victories at the start of a season, with seven, and was now trying to tie the NHL record of eight. Though they outshot Philadelphia 31-20, they lost 5-3, and Philadelphia remained the NHL's only undefeated team at 6-0-0. Round 2 took place on Saturday in Pittsburgh, where a victory would put Philadelphia one shy of the NHL record. Now it was Pittsburgh's turn to play spoiler, and they did, defeating Philadelphia 4-2 to remain in sole possession of first place. In the Adams Division, Quebec stayed on top with a pair of home-and-home victories against Toronto: a 7-1 rout on Wednesday and a 4-3 win on Saturday. Despite those back-to-back losses, Toronto remained in first in the Norris Division with a 3-2-3 record. In the Smythe Division, Edmonton maintained the first-place spot even though it lost four of five games this season on the road. At home the Oilers have been unbeatable, thanks to Gretzky, Gretzky, Gretzky.... It sounds like a broken record, but that's what he did—again—this time on Friday, when he had a hat trick in Edmonton's 6-2 win over Boston. That was Gretzky's 38th hat trick, breaking a record he shared with New York Islander Mike Bossy. In that game he also got his 874th assist, which put him in fourth place on the alltime list, one ahead of Hall of Famer Phil Esposito. "When you pass guys like that [Esposito], it's a little special," Gretzky said about the assist. "Once you get into the top three or four, you're talking about the best players in history, guys like Howe and Orr and Beliveau." Guys like Gretzky.

MARATHON—TOSHIHIKO SEKO of Japan won the Chicago marathon in 2:08:27, a full 1:30 ahead of Ahmed Saleh of Djibouti. Seko, who earlier this year won the London Marathon, took the first-place prize of $40,000. INGRID KRISTIANSEN of Norway was first among the women in 2:27:08.

MOTOR SPORTS—-ALAIN PROST of France, driving a McLaren-Porsche, beat Nelson Piquet of Brazil by 4.2 seconds to win the Australian Grand Prix. Prost covered the 192.5-mile event in 1:54.20. The victory wrapped up his second consecutive world drivers' championship.

Big daddy Don Garlits, 54, became the first Top Fuel dragster driver to win the National Hot Rod Association's points championship in consecutive years by winning an event at the world finals, in Pomona, Calif.

SAILING—America's Cup: In the first round-robin series of the defender trials in Fremantle, Australia, Kookaburra III led with seven points, followed by Australia IV with six points and Kookaburra II with five. The challenger trials will resume this week.

TENNIS—BORIS BECKER defeated Stefan Edberg 7-6, 6-1 to win the $60,000 first prize in a Grand Prix tournament, in Tokyo.

Brad Gilbert was a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-0 winner over Karel Novacek to collect $33,000 in a Grand Prix event, in Vienna.

Top-seeded STEFFI GRAF defeated Catarina Lindqvist 6-3, 6-3 in an indoor tour event in Brighton, England. The victory was worth $40,000.

MILEPOSTS—APPROVED: By a unanimous vote of the National Basketball Association Board of Governors, a motion to expand the league by from one to three teams by the 1990-91 season. The sites will be disclosed at a meeting on April 20, 1987, in New York.

FINED: By NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, 28 Buffalo Bills and 7 New York Jets a total of $16,000, for a bench-clearing brawl during a game on Oct. 5 at Giants Stadium.

NAMED: As an ambassador-at-large for the International Hockey League, NHL Hall of Famer GORDIE HOWE, 58. Howe's responsibilities will include holding clinics and speaking to youth hockey groups.

RETIRED: Los Angeles Dodger shortstop BILL RUSSELL, 38, whose 2,181 games set a Los Angeles club record. Russell, a member of four National League and one World Series championship teams, will serve next season as the club's infield coach, replacing Monty Basgall.

RULED: By arbitrator SAM KAGEL, that 200 NFL players from five teams were improperly fined by team management after they refused to submit to postseason drug tests. Kagel ordered the teams to repay the $1,000-per-player fines within 30 days.