Tim Salmon is grateful to be around for another Thanksgiving after houseboat accident

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The usual throng of 25 to 30 family members and friends will gather in Tim and Marci Salmon's spacious Santa Barbara-style home in the tony Equestrian Manor enclave of this desert city on Thursday for a Thanksgiving feast.

Tim, the former Angels slugger who helped the franchise win its only World Series title in 2002, will cook and carve four turkeys — two in the smoker, one in the deep fryer, one in the oven — while Marci, his wife of 34 years, will decorate the house and organize who brings what salads, side dishes and desserts.

Salmon, a part-time Angels television analyst, will say grace, and each guest will be asked to say something they're thankful for, a holiday tradition that can be perfunctory for many families but one Marci "is really good about making meaningful," Tim said.

Those simple expressions of gratitude will hold even more significance for the Salmon family after Tim shattered his left wrist last June in a freak houseboat accident that could have killed him.

Amid the howling winds and pouring rain of a late-afternoon monsoon in a remote canyon of Lake Powell, Salmon was trying to dislodge a three-inch-thick anchor line from under the swim platform of his 24-foot wakeboard boat that was tied to the massive houseboat when the rope snapped with so much force it tossed his 6-foot-3, 245-pound body about 10 feet through the air, into the bow of the smaller boat.

Salmon's left arm, which was perpendicular to the platform and locked at the elbow as he gripped the rope, bore the brunt of the trauma, the anchor line shooting from Salmon's ankles toward his shoulders so rapidly that it crushed several bones in his wrist