Ram Notebook : It’s an Ashe-to-Riches Story for This Tight End

If Richard Ashe can remain standing, and that’s no guarantee as casualties mount at the Rams’ training camp, he may soon end up at tight end by default.

Ashe is this summer’s free-agent prize, having been plucked by the Rams from a football cereal box known as Humboldt State which, at last glance, hadn’t produced any Mark Bavaros lately.

It wasn’t so long ago that the waiting line to tight end wrapped around the block, as if for a “Batman” matinee. Ashe inched his way up slowly, though, and at last, the ticket booth was in sight.

Then, one by one, the obstacles toppled, and a path was cleared. Eric Sievers, whom the Rams claimed on waivers late last season, was lost to Plan B free agency. Damone Johnson, last year’s starter, keeps the wheels spinning with his holdout--a free agent’s best friend. A hobbling Pete Holohan is out another two weeks with a sore knee.

Vernon Kirk, the team’s ninth-round draft choice, signed late and fell behind, and now he’s out with a leg injury. Bad break for Kirk; good one for Ashe.

So now, the Rams’ tight end force has been pared to Ashe and free agent Gary Knudson.

As luck would have it, the man who just days ago was asking directions to the Rams’ washroom suddenly found himself in the starting lineup against the Super Bowl champions in Tokyo. On national cable television. Before 43,000 fans. Staring down the throats of San Francisco stars Keena Turner and Bill Romanowski.

“It was shocking, yeah,” Ashe admitted.

Ashe once played in what he thought was a big game against UC Davis. It drew 10,000 and needed a homecoming hook to pack them in.

If Ashe could have said, “Pinch me!” in Japanese last Saturday night, he would have screamed it.

“I was pretty nervous,” he said. “I was going up against guys I’d seen on TV. I kept trying not to look in the stands.”

Ashe actually held his own, showing spunk and a spirit that seems to have given him a decent shot at making the team as a blocking tight end, a position the Rams have not filled adequately since David Hill’s release after the 1987 season.

“He’s not a myth,” tight end coach Norval Turner said of Ashe.

Because of the recent rash of injuries, Ashe also isn’t lacking for practice time.

“There was a week there where he thought pro football was far more than he bargained for,” Coach John Robinson said.

But Ashe may turn out to be the bargain.

“He’s still got a long ways to go,” Robinson said. “But I liked the fact he played as good as he did.”

Ashe said that Robinson pulled him aside after the team’s recent scrimmage in San Diego and told him he’d be starting the Tokyo game.

You figure something’s up when the boss calls you direct.

“He said, ‘Hey, I like your style,’ ” Ashe recalled. “He said ‘You’re physical.’ ”

Ashe can’t help but think that way, having spent most of his collegiate career as a defensive end.

If nothing else, he’s proving it won’t be easy for the Rams to turn Ashe to dust.

Big Breaks continued: Richard Brown, good enough to last until everyone’s final cut the last two seasons, gets a real chance at inside linebacker this summer. Again, injuries have greased the skid, though Brown might not have needed the help.

The team’s already thin inside linebacker corps got thinner this week when starter Fred Strickland had knee surgery that will take him out until the season opener.

“It has nothing to do with Strickland,” Robinson said of Brown’s chances. “He has played very well.”

Of course, there’s still Mark Jerue’s comeback to consider. Jerue is fighting off another knee surgery and expects to return Sept. 1.

Ram Notes

Tailback Gaston Green, who seems to be maturing by the minute, turned 23 on Tuesday. . . . Coach John Robinson said a prolonged holdout hurts rookie Cleveland Gary more than veteran Greg Bell. “Bell would come in and be ready to play,” he said. “Cleveland Gary wouldn’t.” . . . What are first games like for rookies? Six minutes before Saturday night’s game in Tokyo, guard Warren Wheat approached line coach Hudson Houck and said: “I can’t remember any of my plays.” Wheat eventually remembered a few, and even took on the 49ers’ mammoth nose tackle, Michael Carter, a few times. “He wasn’t playing against small fish,” Robinson said.

The Rams’ injury lists grows by the minute. Already ruled out for Saturday’s exhibition against the Denver Broncos are tight ends Pete Holohan (hamstring) and Vernon Kirk (leg), safety Anthony Newman (leg), guard Tom Newberry (hamstring) and cornerback Louis Brock (knee). Listed as questionable are cornerback Darryl Henley (ankle), tight end Richard Ashe (hamstring), receiver Aaron Cox (hamstring) and linebacker Larry Kelm (thigh).