The Gear Daddies headline a benefit concert Saturday night for the Marcusen Park Baseball Association.

Other featured bands include LEEP 27, Summit Avenue, Amish Playboys and Plan B.

The gates open 2 p.m. Saturday and the music starts 3 p.m.

All ages are welcome.

The concert will feature stadium/lawn seating at Marcusen Park.

Tickets are $29 in advance or $35 at the gate Saturday.

All proceeds go to preserving the historic baseball park.

Marcusen Park was the mecca of baseball fans in its hey-day.

Fans would fill the stands and line the foul lines or outfield fences just to see a game on a hot summer’s night in the 1940s and 1950s.

With the Cedar River running around it on the pristine diamond’s east and south sides, this was the place “Moose” Skowron, future New York Yanks star, paid his minor league dues.

Baseball historians have documented the essentials:

Dimensions: left field, 335; center field, 410; and right field, 335

Capacity: 2,250

The park opened in 1948 and saw its last active minor league days as a Prairie League team 1996-98, when the Southern Minny Stars of the collegiate Northwoods League was awarded a franchise in Austin.

One baseball historian described it thusly: “This was a pleasant little ballpark in a pleasant Minnesota town. There wasn’t much to it — just a tiny roofed grandstand angled around home and some small bleacher sections down the lines — but it was more than comfortable enough for a few hours of baseball. Since the ballpark wasn’t designed to be a pro stadium, the concessions were sold out of trailers, outside huts and tables, which lent a friendly, picnic-like atmosphere. There was nothing particularly fancy or memorable about this place, but it was just right for indy league ball.”

But the historian also found some things “not so good.”

He wrote an online critique: “ There was nothing terribly wrong with the stadium — it was modest but adequate for independent league ball. My main complaint was the over-the-top antics of the team’s GM — he ran around the stands with a cordless microphone during the entire game, just chatting incessantly, “interviewing” fans, creating noises and providing his comments on everything that happened. Apparently he saw himself, not the team, as the attraction — his picture was on the front cover of the 1997 program, and there was a feature article about him printed inside. Now that the Prairie League has folded and the Northwoods League has taken up residence here, I don’t know if this guy’s still around or not.”

He was referring to Paul Pruitt, the team’s first owner/general manager.

In recent years, the ballpark has undergone a major facelift by the Marcusen Park Baseball Association and it is home to the Austin Blue Sox and Greyhounds, as well as American Legion and other teams.

For one hot summer’s night it will be home to the band Austin music fans claim as their own.

The Gear Daddies enjoyed moderate success in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Its members were Randy Broughten, electric and steel guitar; Nick Ciola, bass; Billy Dankert, drums and vocals; and Martin Zellar, guitar and vocals.

Their most mainstream success was when they played “Late Night with David Letterman” in 1991. Ciola and Dankert did not play on the show because many bands simply sat in with Paul Shaffer and The World’s Most Dangerous Band when playing the show.

The band broke up in 1992, but has since performed reunion concerts. In an interview on Minnesota Public Radio Feb. 10, 2005, Zellar, who has a home in Austin, said that he hoped the Gear Daddies will regroup for a concert.

Most recently, the band appeared at the Minnesota State Fair in August 2006 along with another popular late 80s/early 90s band from neighboring Wisconsin, the BoDeans.

“Zamboni” is their best-known song, having been featured in a few movies and played at various hockey games.

Tickets are available online at ticketmaster.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Macy’s stores and Hy-Vee Food Store of Austin.

To charge tickets by phone, call 252-1010 or 437-7625. Vienna Productions is a co-sponsor of the Saturday night concert with the Marcusen Park Baseball Association.