Word.ws English Dictionary

toe the rubber

toe the rubber verb: to prepare to pitch by situating oneself on the rubber strip of the pitcher's mound.

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. To prepare to pitch by situating oneself on the rubber strip of the pitcher's mound.
    • No runner should take a step off the base until he has seen the pitcher toe the rubber.1952 June, Paul Richards, “Smart Baseball”, in Boy's Life, Boy Scouts of America, →ISSN, page 59
    • Before he could toe the rubber, Green stepped back out of the box and again called for time.2002, Clair Bee, Chip Hilton Sports Series, Volume 22: Home Run Feud, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN
  2. By extension, to pitch generally.
    • 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.2012 December 11, Loren Long, “Sluggers”, in Blastin’ the Blues, Simon & Schuster UK, →ISBN, page 282

Examples of toe the rubber in a sentence

  • If I don’t agree with it, I won’t toe the rubber,” meaning he won’t get on the mound.2005 March 17, Brent Kelley, “Part One: Josh Johnson”, in Voices from the Negro Leagues: Conversations with 52 Baseball Standouts of the...
  • And I didn’t toe the rubber like a lot of other pitchers.2013 January 18, Larry Moffi, “Mel Parnell”, in This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s, Dover...

Forms of toe the rubber

third-person singular presenttoes the rubber
present participletoeing the rubber
past participletoed the rubber
pasttoed the rubber

Questions about toe the rubber

What does toe the rubber mean?
Toe the rubber means to prepare to pitch by situating oneself on the rubber strip of the pitcher's mound.
How do you use toe the rubber in a sentence?
If I don’t agree with it, I won’t toe the rubber,” meaning he won’t get on the mound.
What part of speech is toe the rubber?
Toe the rubber is a verb.
What is the past tense of toe the rubber?
The past tense of toe the rubber is toed the rubber.

Words near toe the rubber in the dictionary

  1. toe tapper
  2. toe tappers
  3. toe the line
  4. toe the mark
  5. toe the plank
  6. toe the rubber
  7. toe to toe
  8. toe touch
  9. toe touches
  10. toe wall
  11. toe walls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toe the rubber (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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