"I was not expecting that," Girardi said. "I think all of us always thought of Alex not taking anything, and I was a little bit shocked, but I was happy with the way he's approached this, dealt with it so far.

"I really felt in his heart he was truly sorry yesterday, because Alex is not a guy of a lot of emotions and you could see the tears in his eyes." ...

"I would probably be worried if he had never been through a controversy before," Girardi said. "If he had never been booed in stadiums, if he was the one that everyone always pulled for, but Alex, everywhere he goes, there's resentment or people that don't like him for whatever reason.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been in this situation with Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi,” Cashman said. “There’s going to be a lot of negatives that come with this. There’s also going to be positives in terms of having some light shed on things. The circumstances are what they are. We’ll deal with it.” ...

“This will be a long process,” Cashman said. “It was a long way for Jason Giambi. I don’t know if it ever really went away. Maybe it wasn’t as loud. It was very loud and then it got softer, but there were always rumblings about it. There always will be.

“Ultimately, Alex has the responsibility for it,” Cashman said. “He will have to deal with it in many forms throughout his career and even post-career. That’s why yesterday was such an important step for him to acknowledge whatever mistakes have been made in the past.”