Here are your happy hour PRO Rumors:

• President and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, Larry Lucchino, may not originally have been on board to do a sign and retire deal with Nomar Garciaparra. Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa of the Boston Herald said, “the Red Sox deny it, but we hear the big one-day contract-slash-retirement announcement was supposed to come at the very beginning of Spring Training. Reportedly, it had to be delayed because Larry wasn’t totally on board with the plan.”
• The Twins do not want to see Joe Nathan miss 2010 and 2011 with his torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. “Timing is very important in this decision,” General Manager Bill Smith said Wednesday. Nathan may be a candidate to undergo Tommy John surgery. If that’s the case, then his recovery time is at least 12 months. If he waits now hoping that his elbow will get better, it will delay his surgery and causing him to miss a portion of the 2011 season. (Joe Christensen, Star Tribune)
• Larry Stone of The Seattle Times says that Boston Red Sox third baseman Adrian Beltre turned down a three-year, $24 million contract from the Oakland Athletics to sign a one-year deal with the Red Sox hoping to sign a bigger deal next off season. Before he signed with Boston, he was expecting to go back to Seattle. “I expected to be back,” he said. “I waited and waited, but there was nothing on the table. That was it. I waited as long as I could. They went different ways. I went different ways.
• Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post talks about the rehab plans for Nationals’ catcher Jesus Flores. Flores says his arm is not feeling good, a few months following his shoulder surgery. Flores will spend ten days to two weeks with famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews and then start a throwing program. The catcher will be on the disabled list to start the season. Worst case scenario is that Flores will be out the whole year.
• The Tampa Bay Rays are opponents of the use of maple bats in the wake of a broken bat shooting towards pitcher David Price on Wednesday. Mark Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times says, “MLB has studied the issue and instituted a ban in the minors of some of the maple bats, which tend to shatter more easily. But it has not taken action at the major-league level.”
• Phil Coke, reliever for the Detroit Tigers, but formerly of the New York Yankees, was “very upset” with the trade that set him to Detroit. “It seemed like some people had done less in the past and stuck around longer. It was tough for me to swallow,” said Coke, adding he’s excited with where he’s at now. (NorthJersey.com)
• Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies star Lenny Dykstra is being accused in a federal court filing that  Dykstra groped the breasts and tried to push a former female employee, Jacqueline Massaaro, down on a bed in his Los Angeles home after the ex-athlete solicited a “blow job.”