A cleaned up conference?

From Jack Curry (NY Times):

When Pettitte, Rodriguez’s teammate, spoke about using human growth hormone, he was remorseful and answered questions for about an hour. Rodriguez will sit under the same canopy that Pettitte sat under outside Steinbrenner Field, but a person who works in major league baseball who is familiar with Rodriguez’s plans said that his session would be much more controlled and condensed.

Unlike Pettitte, who received instructions from the Yankees and his agents, Rodriguez is being advised by several people, including a public relations firm. Pettitte, who said he was a “nervous wreck and scared to death” before he faced the news media a year ago, repeatedly apologized for his mistakes and made some spiritual references. Rodriguez will probably have a more restrained approach in discussing his steroid use.

“The truth will set you free,” Pettitte said last year.

Although Rodriguez’s strategy was still being completed Monday, he was expected to start the news conference by reading a lengthy statement. Rodriguez plans to address some of the potential questions that reporters may ask in his statement. After that, he may answer some reporter’s questions, but he will not answer wave after wave of inquiries, as Pettitte did.

It’s a sticky situation — you’d like Alex to bite the bullet and hold a conference that is engaging and conversational. There are those who will frown upon this forum as the controlled nature of the setting wreaks of inauthenticity. But, at the same time, we saw how Alex’s ESPN interview transcript was dissected and analyzed by sports writers and fans across the globe. Maybe, for this particular player, a statement is necessary in order to avoid further scrutiny (of course, the Q & A portion — no matter how brief — will serve as the main course, though).