Pitcher covers rubber with dirt.

[Stu Clary]

Adult league game. Partner stuck in traffic, sends me a text message that he'll be a couple minutes late, so I get the game started by myself.

Top of first inning comes and goes w/o incident.

While the pitcher is warming up before the bottom of the first, I notice two things: 1) the pitchers plate is covered with dirt - odd, as I could cleary see it during the top of the inning, and 2) the pitcher is a good foot or more behind it while performing warm up pitches.

I pitched slow pitch for 25 years. I know what he's trying to do.

So...I let him toss a few warm ups, then walk out to him. I clear the dirt off the rubber with my foot and tell him that "I'd hate to call an illeagal pitch on him for not being on the rubber". I go back my position to start the game...and lo and behold, the rubber is covered with dirt! I couldn't believe it. So I go back out there, tell him in no uncertain terms that I will remove him from the pitcher position if he does it again.

He countered with the obvious: "Show me where in the rulebook...." I cut him off in mid sentence with "Don't do it again". He didn't and actually moved to shortstop the next inning.

BUT...The "show me where in the rulebook" made me curious. So I've been looking. Do we have anything other than Rule 10, Section 1 to deal with this?