ANALYSIS : And Down the <i> Strrrrrrrretch</i> Comes Davis

Every Hollywood Park bigwig was there, including several with big wigs. Every politician from Inglewood was there, all bubbly, but what do you expect from guys carrying $35 million around a racetrack?

Every clean water glass on the club level was there, one for each celebrant, lined up expectantly next to a dais, a party waiting to happen.

Even Al Davis was there, although few saw him. He spent most of the afternoon in a meeting room behind a bar next to a betting window. Funny where the Raiders and their infamously clean-living boss are doing business these days.

But if the NFL can be founded in an automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio, the league’s future in Los Angeles surely can be cemented somewhere above the home stretch between halves of a daily double.

At least, that was what was supposed to happen Saturday on a lovely day at blissful Hollywood Park.

Davis met with racetrack counterpart R.D. Hubbard after 11 p.m. Friday to close a deal to bring a $250-million stadium to town and keep the Raiders here.

In anticipation of the announcement, Hubbard invited all interested parties, including his own board of directors, to Saturday’s card. A news conference was arranged. A caterer showed up with the water glasses.

There would be teary eyes and dry throats and history.

But Davis awoke Saturday morning with a bad case of Marfa Smeralda.

That is the name of the horse that won the race that Hubbard paused to watch before announcing to the assembled media that the deal had pulled up lame.

For now. Again.

Instead of joining Hubbard at the dais, dignitaries stared at him from the audience. The snack food grew stale. The glasses remained empty.

“I would like to have seen it done today,” Hubbard said, “but it’s just not going to happen.”

At the last minute, Davis decided that there were a couple of teeny matters that still caused him discomfort.

“Some clarifications,” Hubbard said.

They were these:

What happens if the new stadium is not built by 1997 and I have to dwell in the Coliseum’s living hell for more than two years. Oh, the agony! The toilets!

Good points. Davis will lose about $25 million every year he is not in the new building, and he is certainly entitled to ask contractor Ron Tutor for something stronger than a handshake.

He won’t get it, but he can ask. That is what is happening now. Hubbard and Hollywood Park are finished negotiating even the fine print and will wait for an answer like the rest of us.

“The ball is now in the Raiders’ court,” Hubbard said. “We will see what decision they make over the next few days. . . . They are going to go back to their contractor with some things.”

Friends are telling Davis that even if he reached agreement yesterday, there is no way a new stadium can be built by 1997, not considering an intimidating list of permitting procedures required in California even before the first shovel hits the ground.

But Davis will say yes. He will realize that over the life of a 30-year lease, one year won’t mean diddly.

And this time, we’ll give him time. We will make no predictions. We will apply no pressure. We will not chase him down at the Men’s Black and White Clothing Store.

(But if he doesn’t make up his darn mind by next week, that new stadium won’t be finished until the millennium).

The only other news to emerge from Saturday’s card is that, while Hubbard is acquiring the financing and will actually own the stadium, Davis will be in charge of the design and construction.

So much for a press box.

Wonder if the league will have any other visiting locker rooms without electricity and running water?

It is actually hard to blame Davis for his deliberations. He is, after all, making a decision that will affect the rest of his life.

And he is only applying the same meticulous attention to this deal as he does to his football team. What he is being criticized for now, these are the same qualities that will cause people to applaud him this fall if the Raiders are contenders as expected.

“Al Davis doesn’t just think,” one Hollywood Park official said Saturday. “He churns .”

There is also a certain simplicity about the way Davis waded through all those silk suits Saturday while wearing a white Raider jacket and accompanied only by lawyer Amy Trask.

When he finally left the upstairs meeting room at 4:30, he had one request.

“Can I see the racetrack?” he said. “I’ve never seen this racetrack.”

He was soon sitting amiably with Hubbard while trumpets were blaring for the seventh race.

Above them, several bystanders looked at their programs and chuckled.

“Are you a hunch player?” one said. “Then bet this one.”

He was pointing to the No. 7 horse.

Cold N Calculating was its name.

Davis was looking for the first time at what is probably going to be his new next-door neighbor and smiling. At least, it seemed liked he was smiling. You can never tell.