From The New York Times & Yahoo Sports:

New York Yankees' $155 million pitcher Masahiro Tanaka showed that running is not his strong suit as the Major League Baseball team opened spring training in Florida on Saturday.

The star Japanese rookie struggled to complete four laps of the practice field, not much more than a mile, at Tampa, Florida.

Soon after Masahiro Tanaka signed with the Yankees last month, one of the first things he did was to call Hiroki Kuroda, his new teammate and Japanese compatriot. It was part of Tanaka’s duty in accordance with the senpai-kohai relationship.

Tanaka, who is 25 and went through his first official workout with the Yankees on Saturday, has much to learn from the 39-year-old Kuroda, who has pitched for six seasons in the major leagues, four of them with the Los Angeles Dodgers; he is entering his third with the Yankees.

For instance, Kuroda is one of the most physically fit pitchers in all of baseball and has logged thousands of miles running from foul pole to foul pole since he was a high school player in Japan. There is no running assignment Kuroda cannot handle.

But whatever the content of their introductory call, it appears that Tanaka did not ask Kuroda if he should be prepared to run, even a little bit, on the first day of practice.

After throwing a light 32-pitch bullpen session in front of about 75 members of the Japanese news media, and then taking an easy fielding session, Tanaka and the other pitchers were asked to do some modest running.

But in his four laps around the warning track of a practice field, about a mile, Tanaka gasped for breath as if he were an amateur runner nearing the end of his first marathon.

Tanaka said that years from now, when he looked back on his first day in pinstripes, the one thing he would remember will not be the huge news media contingent, or the mound session alongside Kuroda and C. C. Sabathia. It will be those torturous four laps, acknowledging that they had been difficult.

“I didn’t know that I was going to run this much,” he said through his interpreter.

It is not what Tanaka does on the jogging track in February that matters, but what he does on the mound in the regular season. The Yankees hope there is no correlation between Tanaka’s conditioning work on Day 1 and his performance in games that count. But it is safe to say that had the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner been alive to witness the display, he would not have been pleased. After all, the Yankees paid $20 million to Tanaka’s Japanese team for the right to sign him and committed $155 million more to him in contract obligations.

Tanaka acknowledged that he had not been prepared and mentioned it twice without prompting during a news conference.  “The running part,” he said, “that was really hard for me today.”

As for Tanaka’s inaugural bullpen session, he threw a bit harder than he did Thursday during a throwing session at the minor league complex. Francisco Cervelli, who caught him both times, said Tanaka had thrown with more conviction Saturday, hitting the corners of the plate and firing some convincing fastballs.

All the while, Tanaka was followed closely by dozens of reporters who recorded his every move, his every gasp for air. Tanaka said he was flattered by the attention. As with the running, he did not expect it.

“He’s going to get used to that,” Cervelli said. “When the whole team comes, it’s going to be the same for everybody. He’s not the only guy who’s making $100 million.”

(link)

Of course jogging is not easy in Florida. 

Ha ha....NICE!!

I really don't think baseball players need it (even less so, pitchers) but that's still pretty funny considering he's a professional athlete making more money in one year than I'll make in my lifetime!

Pimpin' ain't easy neither.  But I try!   

It might be hard for him to jog, but just think how hard it would be for you to spit that much and scratch yourself in public.