Salmon touches the bases

Dawn comes early. In Afghanistan, so does death.

Tim Salmon stood in silence, blessed and confused. His world was half a world away.

This was not his world, where the definition of a bad day was 0 for 4.

This was 5 a.m., a memorial procession at first light, a time to honor two young American soldiers killed in combat the day before. Salmon did not train with them, did not fight with them, did not laugh with them.

Yet he mourned alongside those who did, not sure whether he was respecting or insulting the memories of the fallen.

“You almost felt like we shouldn’t be there,” he said.

You hear all the time about celebrities who visit U.S. troops abroad -- the singers who drop in for a concert, the athletes who drop in to sign autographs, the movie stars and cheerleaders who drop in and pose for a few pictures. God bless them all.

Seldom do the celebrities stick around. Salmon was minding his own business last year, enjoying his first summer of retirement after devoting the previous 18 to the Angels, when a sports marketing firm called.

We’re putting together a group of retired players to visit troops in Iraq. Would you like to join us?

The timing didn’t work, but Salmon invited the marketing folks to call again. They did, this spring, offering Afghanistan.

He said yes. The next day, Salmon and his wife, Marci, read in the newspaper that country singer Keith Urban was in Afghanistan, entertaining the troops until the sirens screamed, warning of incoming mortar fire.

“He was in the middle of a concert and had to go jump in a bunker,” Salmon said. “We were having coffee and saying, ‘Hmmm.’ ”

Salmon stuck to his word. When he got to Afghanistan last month, he visited the bunker into which Urban had scrambled.

Salmon, 39, joined three other major league alumni -- infielder Dean Palmer and pitchers Jeff Nelson and Mike Remlinger -- on a five-day tour of Afghanistan. The players visited five bases in five days, traveled by military planes, landed on dirt runways and slept in the barracks.

“You take your shower shoes and your towel and walk across the courtyard to the shower,” Salmon said.

On the main bases, away from patrol missions and combat operations, Salmon discovered soldiers do not lack for modern conveniences.

He spent Mother’s Day in Afghanistan, but he ordered flowers for his wife back in Arizona from the Internet, on base. Cable television is a click away, cappuccino a few steps away.

“There’s a Burger King in Bagram,” said Salmon, referring to the U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan.

“The soldiers really sacrifice a lot of time with their families. The military really seems to go the extra mile and provide a lot of things that can make up for it.”

He had breakfast one morning with a soldier responsible for directing convoys around the country. In some places, the soldier told Salmon, the convoys couldn’t go anywhere until the Army Corps of Engineers built roads.

“When you fly in Afghanistan and look down on these towns and their little mud huts, it’s like going back 1,000 years,” Salmon said. “It’s almost like video games, where you’re building cities.”

The way the soldiers explained it to Salmon, they hope they can leave Afghanistan with a national infrastructure, or at least the start of one.

“I didn’t talk to one soldier that was bitter about their situation,” he said. “They all say we’re doing good things and giving these people opportunities they never had.”

When troops return home, baseball welcomes them. Barry Zito’s Strikeouts for Troops program has raised nearly $1 million over the last four years for wounded veterans and their families.

On the Fourth of July weekend, all players will wear caps with stars and stripes adorning team logos. Game-worn caps and other items will be auctioned to benefit the Welcome Back Veterans fund, and that charity will share in the profits of stars-and-stripes caps sold in team stores and online.

In Afghanistan, however, Salmon said he and the other alums were on their own.

“It seemed like there was no connection between us and Major League Baseball, other than we played it,” he said. “To me, it would seem like a natural relationship between the Players’ Assn. and Major League Baseball to contact these retired guys.

“I’ve asked half a dozen retired guys. They’re all interested.”

Salmon would like MLB and the union to send along some baseball gear. He’d like to hand soldiers a bit of memorabilia -- say, an autographed ball -- with a coupon that would admit the soldier and his or her family to any MLB game upon returning home.

That should work. Pat Courtney, a spokesman for the commissioner’s office, and Greg Bouris, a spokesman for the union, each said he would be happy to discuss the issue with Salmon.

To the troops in Iraq: Salmon hopes to visit this fall. And as July 4 approaches, a tip of our cap, to U.S. troops all around the world.

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bill.shaikin@latimes.com