I’m aggravated. I wanted to write a column celebrating Jeter’s 3000th hit and I can’t because some of you didn’t let me.

Over the past few days, I’ve been asked a lot, and I mean a lot, whether I believe Jeter should go to the All-Star Game in Arizona as acknowledgement to baseball fans who gave him their votes, even if he isn’t going to actually participate in the game. A couple of hours ago on this lovely summer Sunday, after the magnificent Saturday afternoon when Derek Jeter got his 3,000-plus-three at Yankee Stadium, the question popped up again. This time it was framed as, “What’s the deal with Jeter?”

Well, since you asked.

I think the deal with Derek Jeter is that his accomplishment Saturday at Yankee Stadium, one of the most dramatic, jaw-droppingly magnificent performances we will ever see from a professional athlete in our lifetimes, one so crazily beyond what can be expected of an individual athlete that it almost shouldn’t have been possible -- a performance Jeter himself said afterward was fueled by his desire to reach his milestone at home, in front of Yankee fans -- I think the deal, if I can get back to it, is that his incredible feat was a pretty darned good show of appreciation all by itself.  And, moreover, that after July 9, 2011 at Yankee Stadium, he doesn’t owe you, me or any other baseball fan, most especially Yankee fans anything. Not a single thing, forevermore, quoth the Raven. He’s already given enough of himself for several careers. As fans, and professionals who cover the sport, as lovers of the game, we are the ones who have to step up and show some added appreciation.

We. Not Derek Jeter.

Yesterday, man. Yesterday. That homerun to left. The five-for-five. The game-winning hit. When Jeter became the first Yankee player ever to rack up 3,000 hits, he did it, as Bernie Williams wrote, by blowing down the door, absolutely kicking it off its hinges and frame, the way he has done it time and time again.

So do yourself a favor and stop wanting more for a minute. Turn off your computer, put away the stat sheets, try for once not to worry about how much Jeter earns, resist the urge to sound clever to your Twitter followers or blog readers.

Try it, just once. 

Stop. Wanting. For a single minute.

Derek Jeter has had a rough ride this season. He has not played up to his own standards of consistency. He has taken criticism from many sides, this corner of the sports universe included. Injured while only a half dozen hits shy of his three-thousandth, he turned his rehabilitation stint in Tampa into a positive and worked on his hitting mechanics to obvious good effect. Resuming his chase for 3, 000 a few weeks later, he was followed  from city to city, ballpark to ballpark, by his loved ones, so they could share in his historic moment when it arrived. Saturday afternoon Jeter’s mother and sister Sharlee missed the game they dearly wished they could attend because of the already scheduled christening of Sharlee’s newborn daughter. The family must be physically and emotionally drained from all this.

In America, we like to spout on endlessly about our love of family values. Everybody's Sister Sledge. Dare to hint that family isn’t the most important thing in your life and people will be reaching to pull your tonsils out of your throat. It's family this, family that . . . and then, when you start WANTING, it's family nothing. If it's somebody else's family, and that somebody is Derek Jeter, they'd better come second to that Arizona wave to his fans or maybe he's not all the captain he's cracked up to be. 

But Jeter has traditionally spent the All-Star break with his family. They have probably traveled to every one of his many All-Star appearances with him over the past decade and a half. And maybe this year Jeter felt that he, his parents and his fiancé needed a break. That Arizona, with its media blizzard and nonstop public appearances, wasn’t the best place for them to recharge their batteries after the chase for 3,000. 

More important, maybe the reasons he decided to take a pass aren’t anyone’s business.  If Jeter and his family and friends want to fly off to Nanga Parbat, the Himalayan Mountain of Destiny, for a few days to hunt the abominable snowman, then arrivederci, or more appropriately namaste, have a nice time and watch out for those baseball fan yetis, I hear they have insatiable autograph hounds among them. 

Which is all to say that Derek Jeter is, yes, folks, human. Together now, once more, nice and slow, on the exhale: huuuummmaaaan.

I do not know Jeter personally. But I would assume he doesn’t wear his uniform, cleats and cap with the interlocking NY in the bathtub, and then shrug into a pinstriped robe before bedtime. Jeter has a life. He doesn't exist for our pleasure, and he isn't a cardboard standup figure that you plunk down wherever you want. 

I would think we’re all capable of figuring this out, including the journalists who suggested he should go to that stupid, boring  popularity contest that’s sort-of-but-not-really a real baseball game in Arizona, not even if it counts, just to wave and smile to the television cameras and answer questions from the handful of their fifth-estate brothers who are getting well paid and fully expensed not to skip the game themselves (or trust me, they would be on vacation with their families).  Those Jeter parents? Unlike the All Star game, they are real. Really real. Long after you've finished the last of your chips and dip, and gotten that wave of acknowedgement you want, and turned off the tube, they have to worry about getting home more bushed than they were at the start of the break when they all could have used some time out of the spotlight. I only wish those journalists with the big opinions would have examined the synaptic twitches that pass for thought processes before opening their Twitter apps to type away.

I’m tired of the carping. Tired of the negativity. It’s a drag. Get out of your little bubbles, people. Try having just one moment of unfettered exhilaration. It won’t hurt, I promise.

This morning my father-in-law spoke with my wife over the phone. He lives in South Florida and is an avid sports fan who loves the Tampa Bay Rays and David Price. When he isn’t being irritable, stubborn and unbearably confrontational, you can learn a lot from him.

Yesterday was his birthday. Three years ago my wife’s mom passed away and birthdays have been tough for the guy.  I called him briefly from the Stadium after exiting from the press conferences, wished him a happy birthday, and asked if he’d seen the game.

“I did,” he said. “The whole thing. And I was so glad when Jeter got that fifth hit. Because a five-hit day for a batter is almost like a perfect game. For a batter, on his big day, it was like Jeter hit a perfect game. And that kid deserves it.”

When he spoke to my wife Sunday morning, my father-in-law told her that he was grateful for that game because thinking about it made him to go to sleep with a smile on his face.

Which was pretty much what it did for me, too.

But I’m not some walking Smiley Face. I’m not  Norman Vincent Peale or the Dalai Lama. I’m not here to inspire anyone. I’ve got my own problems.

You want to keep trying to figure out what the deal is with Jeter, fine. Just please don’t ask me about it or sing his praises twenty years from now. Not where I can hear you. And definitely not without admitting you were all up and bothered about his skipping an All-Star Game somewhere in Arizona, after he gave Yankee fans, and baseball, one of their most glorious days ever right where it counts in New York. 

Follow Jerome Preisler on Twitter: @YankeesInk