The 8-year-old boy from Brooklyn would wait for the "magnificent black man" to pull up in his blue Chrysler. The 29-year-old ballplayer would park his Chrysler at the gas station on Bedford Avenue, where the boy would meet him and walk with him one block to Ebbets Field.

The man called the boy Arthur. The boy called the man Mr. Robinson. He always called him Mr. Robinson -- never Jackie, as the man had asked the fan to call him.

"I couldn't do that," Arthur says, 46 years later.

In 1948, Arthur L. Silber began his hero worship of Jackie Robinson, the great Brooklyn Dodger who was the first black player in the major leagues. From age 8 to 15, Arthur walked Mr. Robinson, No. 42, to the player's entrance at Ebbets Field. The boy played baseball himself, on the streets of Brooklyn with baseballs wrapped in electrical tape because the covers had been pulverized.

It was a glorious time to be a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. From 1947 to 1956, the Dodgers won six pennants. Then, the Dodgers broke Brooklyn hearts and moved to L.A. in 1958, and Arthur Silber moved to Queens (and years later to Baltimore). His hero, Jackie Robinson, died in 1972.

At 54, Mr. Silber owns the Prince William Cannons, a minor league baseball team in northern Virginia. The owner attends about three of every seven home games and likes to tell the players his Jackie Robinson story.

At the games, Art Silber is never out of uniform.

He wears No. 42, of course.

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The Sterling Bank & Trust office is tucked away on Water Street in downtown Baltimore, nearly in the shadow of the Cal Ripken mural near Light and Lombard streets. "I'm Art Silber, president of Sterling Bank & Trust, and I really do make house calls," reads a poster on the office window. Maybe you've heard his radio ads.

Mr. Silber -- who is not that interested in Ripken's "Streak" -- hands out two business cards to a stranger. The bank card is grown-up, but the Cannons card is cool.

Mr. Silber says he bought the Class A Cannons for less than $1 million. The team is a member of the Carolina League and plays its home games at Prince William County Stadium in Woodbridge, Va. The Cannons began in 1978, and the team has produced such players as Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants.

Since taking over the team in 1990, Mr. Silber says he's seen attendance double and souvenir sales triple. Those community billboards in the outfield -- once free -- now cost sponsors $2,800 for the 70-home-game season. The club draws about 250,000 fans each season. Mr. Silber turned down a $5 million offer for the team and figures the Cannons are worth more like $7 million.

"I do have to treat it like a very serious business," he says, "but I don't feel like I'm working."

Minor league baseball is in a zone that's like the hitter's state of mind when the baseball looks like a beach ball coming over the plate. Attendance at minor league parks is the highest it's been in 40 years. There are 216 minor league teams playing in 19 leagues -- a third more teams since 1986. Last year, attendance at the games was 30 million -- compared with 17 million in 1984.

And there's no telling what lasting, wonderful effect Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon had on the minors, thanks to their performances in "Bull Durham."

"People are turning on to it. It's a fun night out," says Larry Wiederecht of the Florida-based National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, which tracks the numbers and popularity of minor-league teams. "Its popularity is not a reflection of major league baseball, it's just that people like that old baseball experience."

Such as cheap tickets. General admission is $4.50 for a Cannons game, where an individual spends an average of $11 at the park, club officials have estimated. "It's less expensive here than at the movies," Mr. Silber says.

Tickets are cheap because overhead is relatively low. The major league teams, the Chicago White Sox in the Cannons' case, pay the salaries and equipment costs of their minor league players. Mr. Silber has a full-time staff of only 10 people, and his main cost is the stadium rental. Minor league baseball -- which has benefited from the ownership of small, savvy businessmen -- is a marketing and promotional tool.

"We are in show business," Mr. Silber says. "We try to put on a great evening."

Between innings

Take any between-inning: giveaways (Snapple beach towels, Rolling Rock sunglasses), fireworks, clowns, Elvis impersonators, and a 150-foot brownie sundae on July 17. The Cannons staff sliced a long PVC pipe in half, filled it with wads of ice cream, and let the kids dig in.

At the sundae promotion, Mr. Silber -- millionaire club owner with a fancy for fine cigars -- was tracked down and sprayed with whipped cream by one of his own employees.

"He's like a big kid," says 18-year-old Erica VanCoverden. "He's a good sport, too. If he wasn't, I don't think I would have dared to throw whipped cream at him."

Erica was working the Aug. 1 game between the Cannons and the front-running Frederick Keys. A half-hour before game time, her boss (No. 42) stands in the on-deck circle. He stands alone, holding his 32-ounce bat. His Dale Murphy-signature, Rawlings glove (unsmudged) is stowed in the mini dugout, which is littered with sunflower seeds. Minor League Baseball forbids tobacco.

A police K-9 demonstration is entertaining a couple of hundred early fans. Grizzled German shepherds tear after pretend bad guys and tear into their padded arms. The "guest" bat boy for the Cannons tries to shove a dead bird back into a nest in the rafters above the dugout. Feathers mix with the sunflower seeds on the ground.

For the 7:30 p.m. games, Mr. Silber beats the evil, I-95 rush-hour ++ traffic by leaving Baltimore either around 2 p.m. or 6 p.m. He

trades his pinstripe suit and $200 dress shoes for his black-and-white Cannons uniform and $59 spikes. He leaves his Rolex on.

He takes batting practice with the team and occasionally gives hitters tips, and they occasionally listen. In 1960, Art Silber was offered a minor-league contract to play second base for the Athletics, which were in Kansas City. Who knows, he might have made it to "The Show" -- the Major Leagues. But then, doctors made more money than ballplayers. And his father, a doctor, didn't want his son to play ball.

"I could not have endured my father's wrath," says Art Silber, whose childhood home was a half-block from Ebbets Field. (His father's three sisters died in the Holocaust, as did uncles and his grandmother.)

He was a pre-med student at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., but he never became a doctor. Art Silber became a successful banker.

"I guess people think he'd be stuck up with all that money, but he's real down to earth," says Erica's father, Tom VanCoverden. He has a field box seat (a section Mr. Silber had installed) for Monday's game against the Keys. Mr. Silber sits here, too. Sits anywhere he likes, actually.

As the players are announced and trot to their positions, Mr. Silber stands against the fence. He is one proud owner. Kids ask him for autographs. They usually don't know what he does for the ballclub. Nevertheless, he signs Cannons caps and tells two boys: "I look like I'm a player, don't I? I'm the owner." Then, he says, quietly: "I'd rather be a player."

You see, he couldn't really buy his dream, this baseball passion born more than 40 years ago when he walked with Jackie Robinson and watched him do magic for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It's not that simple. Don't overrate what money can do.

His real dream

"My real dream is to play," Mr. Silber says. "Until then, I'm still running short."

Let's think about this. Art Silber is 54. He does look fit at 162 pounds on his 5-foot-9 frame. And he is putting in a gym in his dTC new home (he got married last year at home plate). He could lose a few pounds in the gut, which is why he diets and which is why he's having the chicken sandwich in his box seat tonight. (He also had a beer and a cup of fries.)

He's a realistic dreamer. He knows he can't play shortstop, but he thinks he can play a little second base if someone got hurt. He hits well in batting practice, but the key words here are batting practice.

"When the season started, I told the second baseman I was going after his job," the owner says, chuckling.

But this isn't fantasy baseball camp. The owner can't just put himself in the lineup; Mr. Silber would need a contract from the White Sox to play, and that ain't happening. So, he settles for suiting up, treating friends to box seats and parking behind home plate to watch pitches.

Tonight, he's watching left fielder Charles Poe take the count to 3 and 2. Mr. Poe has the amusing distinction of being the player the Class AA Birmingham Barons dropped to make room for some guy named Michael Jordan, who came so close to being a Cannon! Heck, some of the Cannons programs still have a picture of the former NBA star on its cover.

Anyway, Poe is waiting on the 3-2 pitch. The Keys pitcher has got to come with a fastball, Mr. Silber says. He sure does, and Mr. Poe drives the ball right by the Marlboro Man billboard in right center. "That's called waiting on a fastball," the owner says, giving his left fielder a standing ovation for the home run.

COME ON, JIMMY. CONCENTRATE! Mr. Silber hollers at Jimmy Hurst, a Michael Jordan look-alike but who can actually play big league ball. Remember his name, the owner says. JIMMY HURST.

At the end of the sixth inning, it's time for the Pizza Scream. Boomer, the Cannons' mascot, holds a pizza aloft and gives it to the section that screams the loudest.From the crowd of more than 1,000 people, waves of hungry shrieks are heard. It beats the K-9 show.

Simple, silly things

Minor league baseball, in all its leisure and grass roots, gives fans the simple and silly things, while giving them glimpses of things that could one day be big and mighty -- such as Jimmy Hurst. And the Cannons give us Pete Rose Jr., who tonight is something like 3 for 3. He hustles like his old man, "who I don't think is even allowed to be here to watch him," Mr. Silber adds.

The Cannons have a 5-0 lead in the seventh. The PA announcer tells a lucky fan that "your car has been picked the dirtiest on the lot! For that disgrace, you win a free car wash." Mr. Silber is working the crowd, easy to spot. No. 42.

"If I put a million dollars into the team, I'd put a uniform on, too. I'd do whatever I wanted," says Cannons fan Bob Tomlinson, who's basking in the bleachers.

In the minors, the umpires, managers and players tend to come and go -- up. They all want to make it to The Show. The very good players, making their $1,200 a month, stay with the Cannons for a year before they are promoted. If they are here for three or four years, they probably aren't going anywhere else.

Mr. Silber has no dreams of getting called up. He says he has no interest in owning any part of the Baltimore Orioles. "What, and deal with all those egos? I'm used to running things myself," he says.

As for the probable baseball strike Friday, the owner of the Cannons is not heartbroken. "We wouldn't want to take advantage of the strike," he says, "but we would be the only game in town."

DOVE BARS for sale, a teen-age vendor bellows. Pete Rose Jr. gets caught stealing second and still gets cheered -- he took out the second baseman, yes he did. By the eighth inning, Mr. Silber has left the only game in town tonight. He's the boss and can leave when he pleases. And, as everyone knows, No. 42 didn't get into the game.

The minor league season will end after Labor Day, then start all over again in the spring when Arthur Silber will welcome players to the Prince William Cannons. He'll give his pep talk and tell the players his Jackie Robinson story. Some of the players will not know the name.

The owner will tell the players another truth.

"I would do anything to go out and do what you guys are doing."