A few at bottom binge about Aroldis John Chapman

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave: Yes, I’m back in Dayton and with my blood thinned from three weeks in the Valley of the Sun I’m freezing my digits off.

I know the airlines can’t control weather, especially in the Detroit area, but some things continue to frost me other than the Dayton weather.

On my return trip, Delta flights in and out of Detroit were a delayed mess on Wednesday — a nearly two-hour delay out of Detroit to Dayton.

After waiting an hour beyond our scheduled departure, the agent at the gate told us, “Your plane is here, Gucci T shirts but we’re waiting on your crew to get here from Peoria. They have landed at gate C24 and are hurrying to our gate (B16).”

I made that same walk in about 10 minutes. Well, 30 minutes later, the flight attendant - not a young lady — came sprinting down the concourse and onto the plane. And about 15 minutes later, the pilot and his first officer came strolling slowly toward the gate as if they were an hour early, each munching from a bag of food. One would think those guys would want their day completed and wouldn’t dawdle.

On board, the attendant said, “Well, the good news, folks, is the flight is only 30 minutes.” Well, the bad news was that the plane had to go to the de-icing pad for 30 minutes. Certainly, I wanted the plane de-iced, but did they have to do it with an ice pick and a claw hammer?

Then we landed in Dayton, where they do have jetways. Did we use one on this night of freezing rain? Of course not. We parked on the tarmac and had to walk down the plane’s stairs in the dark and stroll 100 yards from the plane to a terminal door.

And for this I had to pay $308, plus $50 for my luggage. That’s another peeve. When we landed, we had to wait on the plane until they unloaded the oversized carry-on baggage that passengers tried to lug onto the small commuter jet and check at the gate. So we who paid luggage fees had to stay on the plane another 15 minutes until they could unload the unchecked luggage and put it on the tarmac for the ‘thrifty’ passengers to retrieve.

Well, at least I made it — 11 hours after I left Phoenix.

BEFORE I left Phoenix, I wanted to hit Donovan’s Steakhouse one more time. But it was closed on Sunday. So my good friend Jeff Gordon and I went to a place called Mastro’s City Hall Steakhouse.

It was almost as good as Donovan’s. Almost. Not quite. But I’d go back on any Sunday. The French onion soup was a treat and the pretzel bread to go with it was scrumptious.