FORT MYERS, Fla. — Mike Lowell just took Phillies pitcher Brett Myers deep in the bottom of the first inning of today’s exhibition game. It seems likely that Jonathan Papelbon (if he is still on the premises — the Sox closer is not scheduled to pitch in today’s game) watched the ball sail over the fence and said something along the lines of, “Dude, been there, bro.”

Papelbon claims to have homered off of Myers in high school. Now, Lowell can claim to have homered off of the potential Opening Day starter for the Phillies in the Grapefruit League.

Using Papelbon’s plate prowess as a point of departure, here are a few other items of interest from some Sox players’ pasts:

Pride of Gonzaga

–Jason Bay is a product of Gonzaga University, and so was elated to see his alma mater advance in the NCAA tournament. Bay transferred to Gonzaga for his junior season (1998-99), just in time to catch the beginning of the college hoops team’s seemingly annual run as the upset darling of the tournament. Gonzaga advanced to the Elite Eight, and came tantalizingly close to beating UConn to advance to the Final Four. Bay suggests that the basketball team’s success was a key element in elevating the profile of all of its sports programs, including baseball. Scott Golby, the scout who recommended and signed Bay for the Expos, suggests that many Northwest scouts skipped Spokane, helping to explain why Bay went undrafted after a monster junior year. Bay cites John Stockton and Bing Crosby as Zags alums who are more famous than he.

Before he went to Gonzaga, Bay was at North Idaho College in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, a city best known for having the world’s only floating green.

–Daniel Bard hails from the University of North Carolina, and so may come to blows with Bay while watching the Sweet 16 next weekend. Unlike former Sox and UNC pitcher Kyle Snyder, who said that he provided formidable pick-up competition for the likes of Vince Carter, Bard suggests that he was a bad basketball player, capable of dunking but otherwise a terrible shooter. As Toeing the Rubber notes with considerable chagrin, Snyder was recently re-assigned by the Mets to minor-league camp.

For those more interested in the present, Josh Beckett is cruising through a fairly solid Phillies lineup (one hit in three innings), Jed Lowrie made a tremendous running catch of a pop-up down the line in shallow left (though nearly colliding with Bay in the process) and Dustin Pedroia, in his second game back from his lower abdominal strain, is 1-for-2 with a sharp single to left. Kevin Youkilis, by the way, seems likely to play tomorrow, while the swelling on J.D. Drew‘s hand is subsiding, but there’s still no timetable for his return to game activity.