( CNN ) -- Derek Jeter 's nicknames : `` The Captain , '' `` Captain Clutch , '' `` Mr . November . '' -- baseball-reference.com . I do n't know anybody who calls Derek Jeter either `` Captain Clutch '' or `` Mr . November . '' * * * . This week begins `` what can only be called Derek Jeter Week in Major League Baseball . '' -- a story from Newsday . I do n't know anybody who has called this Derek Jeter Week in Major League Baseball . * * * . `` How Should Derek Jeter Leave the Field in His Last Game at Yankee Stadium ? '' -- a headline from USA Today . Uh , I do n't know ... on foot ? * * * . Derek Jeter , baseball player , is not nearly as big a deal as a lot of New Yorkers think he is . I know people with no clue how big he is . Literally . `` How tall would you guess Derek Jeter is ? '' I asked a baseball fan from L.A. `` Hmmm , '' she said . `` Five-foot-10 ? '' No , he is 6-foot-3 . Everything else you 've ever wanted to know about Derek Jeter , you could be about to find out . TV , radio , blogs , magazines , newspapers . smartphones and carrier pigeons based in New York City are treating this , Jeter 's last week of playing Major League Baseball , as slightly less monumental than the discovery of America in 1492 . Queeg , Bligh , Cook , Phillips , Marvel , America and Crunch are just a few of the Captains now considered by many New Yorkers to be not as big as theirs . But you know what ? Californians are n't obsessing over these being Jeter 's last days of playing ball . Texans or Minnesotans or Ohioans or Floridians , either . I mean , they LIKE him and all . A really fine athlete . A really fine guy , too , it seems . Scandal-free . A class act , people in and out of baseball tend to agree . The Anti-A-Rod . Should a fuss be made over his retirement ? Of course . A warm sendoff definitely is in order . A standing O . A lovely parting gift . A tip of thousands of caps . A wobble of thousands of bobbleheads . But , man oh man , is New York going completely wacko overboard or what ? I expect any minute for the mayor there -- what 's his name , the tall guy who came after Bloomberg -- to announce that a certain other tall piece of work is being renamed The Jeter State Building . It would n't surprise me if future New Jersey commuters come to town through the Jeter Tunnel or catch a helicopter at Jeterboro . I have booked a flight east for 2015 that probably will include a connection at Kennedy-Jeter . They 've done everything in NYC except stage a new Broadway version of `` Damn Yankees '' in which Washington 's team loses because a young Derek Jeter wants to be a Yankee so much , he sells his soul to the devil . Or a new version of `` Bye , Bye Birdie , '' now that he 's leaving , with the lyrics changed to : `` We love you , Derek , oh , yes we do ! We love you , Derek , and we 'll be true . When you 're not near to us , we 're blue . Oh , Derek , we love you ! '' American sports fans from Alabama to Alaska are not stricken with this Jeter-mania the way New Yorkers are . He 's big , but not that big . A lot of Europeans and Asians would n't know Derek Jeter from Darth Vader . Did he have a great career ? No doubt about it . Opinion : Baseball 's humble hero . If you know your baseball , you must be impressed that Derek Jeter has had more hits in his career than Willie Mays , Barry Bonds , Lou Gehrig , Ted Williams or Babe Ruth did . A bat stat I like , for the amusement or amazement of you baseball lovers out there , is this one : Derek Jeter already has more hits than Jackie Robinson and Mark McGwire did combined . I repeat , COMBINED . For the past 20 years , the shortstop for the New York Yankees , the most successful organization in American baseball , has been a kid who played his high school ball in Kalamazoo , Michigan , on his way to fame and fortune in the big city . In most of the United States of America , baseball fans seem to consider Derek Jeter a great player . In the largest city in the United States of America , baseball fans seem to consider Derek Jeter a visitor from the planet Krypton . Well , to each his own . No one anywhere would dare argue that Jeter is undeserving , or overrated , or `` maybe '' a Hall of Famer . On the contrary , this guy is a rarity in this day and age , a certain Hall of Famer . A mortal lock . I admire him . I met him , interviewed him , liked him . One day in 2008 , I got him for a while in Chicago one-on-one . We were chatting about the New Yankee Stadium under construction , a work in progress , and Jeter said enthusiastically : `` It 'll look just like the old one , except with 500,000 more feet of space . '' I remember saying Wrigley Field ought to think the same way . `` Exactly , '' Jeter said . I later asked Ozzie Guillen , a successful Chicago White Sox shortstop and manager , what he thought of Jeter . `` The perfect man , '' he replied . Oh ? In what way ? `` Derek Jeter has everything in life , '' Guillen said . `` He 's got money , he 's got rings , he 's ... . '' A pause before the punchline . `` ... .not married . '' That got a laugh . `` Too bad I do n't have a daughter , '' Guillen added . The off-the-field life of Derek Jeter brought a smile to our faces that day , as the on-the-field one has to many since . He 's been a New York Yankee his whole professional life . He was drafted in June , 1992 -- Houston , Cleveland , Montreal , Baltimore and Cincinnati picked first but took somebody else -- and made his Major League debut in a May 29 , 1995 , indoor game before a `` crowd '' of 18,948 fans in Seattle , batting ninth in the Yankee lineup that day . Wade Boggs , Randy Velarde and Don Mattingly were in the infield with him . He went 0-for-5 and the Yanks lost . Thousands of hits later , Jeter is retiring and his uniform number 2 will be put out to pasture as well . ( A guy named Mike Gallego was the last Yankee to wear it before him . ) Those hits include a walk-off home run that won Game 4 of the 2001 World Series on a Halloween night . It came after midnight , therefore technically becoming the first World Series homer ever struck in the month of November . He became `` Mr. November '' to somebody that night , a name absolutely nobody has known him by since . `` The Captain '' is what Yankee fans do call him . A promotion to admiral could be in order . Thursday is his last scheduled game at Yankee Stadium . A weekend of games in Boston follows that , and that 's that . Admirable player , admirable career . King of the hill , top of the heap . Not THAT big a deal ? OK , OK , so maybe he IS even bigger than some of us think . Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion .
Mike Downey : New Yorkers are treating retirement of Derek Jeter as monumental event . He says sports fans around the nation may not be as sold on the momentous occasion . But how good was Jeter ? He 's a lock for the Hall of Fame , amazing stats and performance , he says . Downey : Baseball will miss the Yankee captain .