Brian Cashman shunned media requests Thursday to discuss the passing early that morning of Gene Michael. It was too raw to try to find the right words for public consumption about a mentor, guru and friend.

“I was choking up just talking about him with people at work,” Cashman said by phone Friday.

But with a day to process his thoughts after Michael died of a heart attack at 79, the Yankees GM spoke about Michael’s conviction when it came to his baseball opinions, his willingness to absorb new information, his sturdiness to tell hard truths to George Steinbrenner and his perhaps unmatched scouting eye.

“But I don’t want to just talk about the baseball because what I loved about him too was how warm and welcoming he was,” Cashman said.

Cashman served as Michael’s assistant GM in the early 1990s and from when Cashman became Yankees GM in 1998, he continued to lean on Michael’s perspective, counsel and baseball acumen.

Michael spent most of his career either playing for the Yankees or serving in a variety of roles, including GM twice. Most of that time was under Steinbrenner, and it is now often forgotten to time just how relentlessly mean Steinbrenner could be to his employees, especially the person in the GM chair.

“He was a scout with an eye for talent and George was emotionally reactive to items in the short term,” Cashman said. “But George Steinbrenner saw something in Gene Michael. He gave him opportunities as a coach, manager, scout and GM. He kept him around because he needed the direction and approach that Stick offered. Even when he was fighting with Stick on plenty of things, George still recognized that Gene Michael had a gift that made George Steinbrenner and the Yankees better.”

Interestingly, Cashman revealed that his most important lesson learned from his mentor was not about dealing with Steinbrenner or how to evaluate players best.

“For me personally it was the power of ‘No comment’ (to the media),” Cashman said. “It wasn’t that he thought I would be a GM some day, but he would just share what he believed, and he said when a reporter got some secret behind-the-scenes info about the Yankees business and called him, he warned, ‘Never lie.’ He said you will sacrifice your integrity and make things worse in the long run because the truth always comes out. He said the power of the ‘No comment’ was a get-out-of-jail card. You don’t have to confirm or deny, but chasing a writer who did his job and got the information right off the story creates problems moving forward. Let them try to confirm it elsewhere, but don’t lie.”

Cashman said he also admired how Michael stayed open-minded about analytics, though he was an old-style scout at heart. When he heard something that intrigued him, Michael would pull over an analyst and ask them to explain the concept further. And to anyone in the front office who asked, he would share his insights.

“He was not an intimidating figure, even with success,” Cashman said. “He was a mentor to many people in this office. He would take the time and pass the baton. He did it with me and plenty others. If you were interested, he would give his time and expertise to try and train you. He was a remarkable individual who was impactful.”

And at Michael’s core, he was a scout. He loved doing it. He loved trying to assess the current and future skill levels of players and his adeptness at it helped form the core of the Yankees’ last dynasty.

“Looming over every move with George was him saying, ‘You better be right,’” Cashman said. “And Gene Michael was mostly right. That is the most significant thing of all. When the dust settled, Gene Michael was mostly right.”