By BEN CRANDELL

Nelly opened this season's Super Saturday concert season on April 10. (Getty Images file)

The surprising thing about Friday’s announcement that popular college-rock jammers O.A.R. will be playing the Florida Marlins Super Saturday concert series on June 26 is that it doesn’t feel so surprising anymore.

Star power is becoming commonplace at Marlins’ games on Saturday night: The post-game concert series kicked off on April 10 with Grammy-winning mega-star Nelly, whose opening act was Lil Wayne protege Kevin “I Made It” Rudolf, along with rising SoCal rappers The New Boyz. Last season’s lineup opened with Pitbull and Flo Rida, a concert that drew nearly 40,000 to Sun Life Stadium.

For the music curator of Super Saturdays, Marlins vice president of marketing Sean Flynn, that show proved that music and baseball are a good mix.

“It was unbelievable. We caught lightning in a bottle that night,” Flynn recalled. “Flo Rida had [the hit single] ‘Right Round’ and he had just been on ‘American Idol’ that week. Pit was breaking. And DJ Laz drove the machine.”

Super Saturdays are held for each Saturday night home game, 13 this season, and typically offer fans celebrity and player autographs, special giveaways and the post-game concert and fireworks. At some point a baseball game gets played.

It is a model that may make baseball purists shudder, but Flynn says other markets, including the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays, are following the Marlins’ lead.

“Obviously baseball is a major component of what we do, but we are first and foremost an entertainment property,” said Flynn, also the brain behind the Manatees cheer team. “Sizzle sells here.”

He said he uses contacts in the radio and recording industries to fill out the season’s Super Saturday lineup, which Flynn says aims for broad appeal and typically features half Latin-oriented acts (Just announced: Gilberto Santa Rosa on Sept. 18).

Past acts have included Cuban siren Albita and local staple Willy Chirino; rockers Bret Michaels, Vince Neil and Quiet Riot; classics Paul Rodgers and Lou Gramm (Foreigner); and disco-era mainstays the Village People and KC and the Sunshine Band.

In looking for clues to what he might book in the future, we find Flynn’s personal music preferences frustratingly eclectic.

A 41-year-old Coconut Grove resident and father of three youngsters, Flynn knows his hip-hop. His favorites? “Jay-Z. But all time? Run DMC,” he says.

Recent concerts he’s attended: Oasis in Las Vegas and AC/DC at BankAtlantic Center last year. Most of his Sirius presets are “poppy, to stay relevant,” but he does hit 1st Wave for a frequent ’80s fix and Classic Vinyl for more obscure album rock.

Which might explain his hint of an imminent announcement of “a major classic rock act” booked for Super Saturday later in the season.

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