Dear Al: Please Come Back, but Leave Your Team There

Celebrating Al Davis’ 68th birthday last Friday with a barbecue, fireworks and John Philip Sousa marches, I decided to write him this letter:

Dear Al,

Come back.

All will be forgiven if you bring us an NFL team.

I’m not talking about the Raiders. They belong to Oakland. Heaven forbid that we here in Southern California should attempt to steal another city’s sports franchise.

I’m talking about an expansion team.

Paul Tagliabue and his cohorts have claimed this territory for the NFL and say they will dictate the owner of a new team here.

But I feel safe in speculating they will dictate in your favor if you offer to drop the half-billion dollars in legal claims against the league.

Every time they say they aren’t worried about another suit, I laugh. I don’t have to remind you of your record against them in court.

As for your new team’s home, I know you don’t want to return to the Coliseum. That’s one thing you and the NFL seem to agree upon.

Hollywood Park, though, still has more wide open space than it knows what to do with. You and R.D. Hubbard could start negotiations for a new stadium right where you left off in 1995.

Hubbard is still talking to Donald Sterling about building an arena for the Clippers. With that, your stadium and the race track, Inglewood would have its version of the Meadowlands, without Jimmy Hoffa’s body.

If you’d said yes to Hubbard’s deal two years ago, the Raiders would be opening this season within a few weeks in the NFL’s most modern stadium.

Instead, you took them back to Oakland. I know that was a mistake. I know you know it.

So sell the Raiders.

Start over with an expansion team. Come home.

That’s the best invitation you’re going to get.

Black uniforms optional.

*

I hope Randy Johnson goes at least two innings in the All-Star Game so we’ll finally get to see him pitch to Larry Walker. . . .

Thanks to the “Catcher Cam,” the mini-camera Fox is sticking on the catcher’s mask for tonight’s game, we’ll see Johnson’s pitches from Walker’s disadvantage point. . . .

Maybe then we’ll have some sympathy for Walker. . . .

His decision a couple of weeks ago to watch Johnson from the bench was the most misunderstood one in sports since Carl Lewis chose not to try for a world record in the long jump during the 1984 Summer Olympics. He was conserving his energy. . . .

It worked for Lewis. Thirteen years later, he’s still anchoring sprint relay teams to victories, as he did Monday in Stockholm. . . .

It hasn’t been a good year for Sebastian Coe. Not only was his 16-year-old 800-meter record equaled Monday, by Wilson Kipketer in Stockholm, Coe earlier was voted out of Parliament. . . .

London tabloids predict that Tiger Woods’ arrival in the United Kingdom for the British Open will rival the Beatles’ in the United States in 1964. . . .

From the reaction of teenage girls during Wimbledon, I thought Tim Henman was the newest Beatle. . . .

The latest player to join Henman, Richard Krajicek and Jim Courier in the Infiniti Open at UCLA July 21-27 is Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic. . . .

Pete Sampras is taking a well-earned break. . . .

Martina Hingis, though, has entered the Toshiba Classic on July 26-Aug. 3 at La Costa and the Acura Classic on Aug. 4-10 at Manhattan Beach. . . .

What music are teens like her listening to today? I guess it’s the Dave Matthews Band. . . .

That’s the rock group Amanda Beard scurried from the USC pool during the Janet Evans Invitational to see in concert Saturday night. . . .

Did you catch “Iron Mike’s Bite-Down Countdown” on VH1 on Monday night? . . .

Live from a New York gym, videos included Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” Hall & Oates’ “Maneater,” and Def Leppard’s “Love Bites.” . . .

The jokes among boxing promoters stopped Monday afternoon, when the Las Vegas Hilton backed out of the July 18 Johnny Tapia-Danny Romero fight because of an insurance dispute. The fight was moved to the Thomas & Mack Center. . . .

That’s the first sign of fallout from Tyson-Holyfield. But not the last.

*

While wondering if the Angels haven’t found the ace they need in Chuck Finley, I was thinking: I had a hunch the Angels would be contenders, the Cubs would be about as close to first place as the Dodgers and the Giants and Pirates would be in first place at the All-Star break.