toe the rubber

English

Verb

toe the rubber (third-person singular simple present toes the rubber, present participle toeing the rubber, simple past and past participle toed the rubber)

  1. (baseball) To prepare to pitch by situating oneself on the rubber strip of the pitcher's mound.
    • 1952 June, Paul Richards, “Smart Baseball”, in Boy's Life, Boy Scouts of America, →ISSN, page 59:
      No runner should take a step off the base until he has seen the pitcher toe the rubber.
    • 2002, Clair Bee, Chip Hilton Sports Series, Volume 22: Home Run Feud, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN:
      Before he could toe the rubber, Green stepped back out of the box and again called for time.
    • 2005 March 17, Brent Kelley, “Part One: Josh Johnson”, in Voices from the Negro Leagues: Conversations with 52 Baseball Standouts of the Period 1924–1960, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, →ISBN, page 40:
      He would tell me, to protect me and to help me retain confidence, he said, “You go ahead and call your game. If I don’t agree with it, I won’t toe the rubber,” meaning he won’t get on the mound. When I’d give a signal and he’d toe the rubber, I’d know that’s the one he wanted.
    • 2013 January 18, Larry Moffi, “Mel Parnell”, in This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s, Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 135:
      And I didn’t toe the rubber like a lot of other pitchers.
  2. (baseball) By extension, to pitch generally.
    • 2012 December 11, Loren Long, “Sluggers”, in Blastin’ the Blues, Simon & Schuster UK, →ISBN, page 282:
      Out on the field, Elizabeth stepped to the mark. She stared down at the fresh target draped over the wagon wheel behind second base and windmilled her arm like Happy so often did when he used to toe the rubber for the Travelin’ Nine.

References

  • Dickson, Paul (1999), The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary: A Cyclopedic Reference to More Than 7,000 Words, Names, Phrases, and Slang Expressions that Define the Game, Its Heritage, Culture, and Variations, Harcourt Brace & Company, →ISBN, page 505
  • Hample, Zack (27 March 2007), “Glossary: Baseball Slang”, in Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 233
  • “Toe The Rubber”, in Baseball Dictionary‎[1], 20 September 2025 (last accessed)
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