Hi Corbett Field is where the San Diego Padres play the Colorado Rockies in an exhibition baseball game.

The Cactus League, that’s what they call it.

The reason I’m bringing up Pete Taylor’s name in connection with an exhibition baseball game isn’t because, as far as I know, Pete particularly liked baseball in March.

It’s because Pete liked San Diego.

The city, that is.

And he never got to make the kind of trip there that he and I always talked and laughed about.

Of course, we weren’t any different than lots of other people from the midwest who spend a three-day weekend in San Diego.

"San Diego is where I’d like to eventually live," the Cyclones’ football and basketball play-by-play announcer said.

"Sounds like a great idea to me," I said.

That started a trend. Whenever I’d see Taylor in a place like Manhattan, Kan., Stillwater, Okla., or some other Big 12 Conference garden spot, he’d say, "Hey, how come we’re not in San Diego?"

We even talked about San Diego in one of the years both of us went to Salisbury, N.C., when Taylor was voted Iowa’s Sportscaster of the Year and I was voted Iowa’s Sportswriter of the Year.

He won his award four times, I won mine four times.

"I’m ready," I’d say. "Now I just have to talk my wife and kids into it."

The last time Pete and I talked about San Diego was during the present basketball season. I think it was snowing and the wind-chill was minus-10 in Ames and Des Moines.

Now, of course, Pete won’t be able to make the trip.

The permanent trip to San Diego, I mean.

Instead, he’s in a better place.

Pete died yesterday at the much-too-young age of 57.

He was a wonderful human being and broadcaster. I’ll miss him a lot.

When told she’d be sitting next to Olson, Toretti gave Lute the supreme compliment.

"Who’s Lute Olson?" the AP reports she said.

Now at least Toretti, 46, knows who Olson, 68, is. Indeed, she’s marrying the Arizona – and former Iowa – basketball coach on April 12.

Toretti, a divorcee from Indiana, Pa., has three sons, ages 15, 12 and 10. Olson has five grown children.

Olson has no plans to retire from coaching,. Toretti is a Republican national committeewoman and CEO of an oil and gas drilling company, and will keep her home in Pennsylvania.

Olson and Toretti will live in Tucson during the basketball season.

The marriage will come more than two years following the death of Bobbi Olson, who was Lute’s wife for 47 years.

The floor at Arizona’s McKale Center, where the Wildcats play their home games, is named Lute & Bobbi Olson Court.