By E. Graydon Carter

Old ballplayers don't just fade away, they can do Panasonic or Mr. Coffee ads. Or they can sign on as good-will personalities for Atlantic City casinos. Willie Mays, 51, kicked off the practice three years ago, when he was drafted for customer relations duties by Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel. Last week former Yankee Great Mickey Mantle, 51, still a part-time batting coach with the team, announced that he too was heading for the Boardwalk, to join the Claridge Hotel and Casino, at a reported $100,000 annually. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, 56, swiftly and expectably stepped in to inform Mantle that he, like Mays, would have to sever his Yankee ties because of his new affiliation with legalized gambling. The onetime home-run king, who will be required to do little more than play in half a dozen golf tournaments a year with some of the casino's high rollers, accepted the news graciously. "I would never do anything to embarrass baseball," said Mantle. "But I've been out of the game for 14 years, and nobody's been knocking at my door."

The offspring of the Soviet hierarchy, like their Western counterparts, are not immune to public scrutiny. A case in point is Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov's son. Until his father was elevated to his new prominence, Igor Andropov, 37, toiled away at political research in blissful obscurity. Tall, bespectacled and slightly stooped like his father, the younger Andropov has been in Madrid since November as the fifth-ranking Soviet delegate to the European Security Conference. No mere beneficiary of nepotism, he has followed a career path similar to that of many successful Soviet diplomats. After studying at Moscow's prestigious State Institute for International Relations and at the Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies, he was reportedly posted to Budapest, where his father had been Ambassador during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Igor has hardly cultivated the press, but at the conference last week, photographers breached his relative anonymity. Apparently he is easily recognizable. One diplomat who met him at the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Moscow reports, "The minute I saw him come in, I knew it was him. He's the spitting image of his father." A regular chip out of the old Soviet bloc.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Newsweek, Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham hired not one hall but three of New York City's biggest. While most of the magazine's staffers celebrated at the Sheraton Centre hotel a few blocks away, a stream of stretch limos deposited celebrities at Lincoln Center for a biflorate black-tie dinner party at the New York State Theater and Avery Fisher Hall. Hostess Graham reportedly busied herself with the tiniest of details, right down to the seating arrangements. For First Lady Nancy Reagan's dinner companions, she chose Henry Kissinger and Lawyer Edward Bennett Williams. Flanking former President Jimmy Carter were Graham herself and Margaret Truman Daniel. Rosalynn Carter dined with former Democratic Party Boss Robert Strauss and Richard Simmons, Washington Post Co. president. Some 2,400 other place cards included notables from television (Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite), business (Laurance Rockefeller, Lee Iacocca) and show business (Steven Spielberg, Diana Ross). Two hours of after-dinner ceremonies went from Graham's opening remarks to a closing "My Turn" salute by Time Inc. Editor in Chief Henry Grunwald, who observed that TIME and Newsweek have been "inevitably linked as a fated pair, like Macy's and Gimbels, Coke and Pepsi, Hertz and Avis." Former Newsweek Editor in Chief Osborn Elliott recalled the day in 1961 when Philip Graham bought the magazine from Vincent Astor's estate. "All he had was a personal check," reported Elliott. "He said later he had never written a check for that amount of money and didn't know if he should put zero zero cents after the 2 million" for the down payment. Speculation was that Mrs. Graham spent that much again to say Happy Birthday, Newsweek.

--By E. Graydon Carter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.