DENVER - The visiting clubhouse doors will open on Sunday morning, and the Phillies will mark a first in team history when they welcome a player back to the team during the same season in which he tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Daniel Stumpf, a rookie reliever, is set to rejoin the Phillies at the conclusion of his 80-game suspension for using dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic steroid that was created in the 1960s for East German Olympians. Stumpf is the fifth Phillies player to be suspended by Major League Baseball, which began drug testing in 2004.
It will be interesting to gauge the reception in the clubhouse when the doors open and a player loses his job because Stumpf has returned.