Home Plate

[k-blue]

Question concerning home plate.

In slow pitch softball, often times, the ball will hit the black rubber around home plate. At times, it hits near the top where one could argue that it also hit the plate, but other times it hits the side and is quickly deflected away from the plate.

How do you judge the pitch in, a(the ball hits the top of the rubber near the plate, b(the ball hits the side of the rubber?

I'm just curious how others call it. It seems that with the officials that I work with, some consider the rubber part of the plate, and some do not consider it part of the plate.