Tate | Illini softball gets boost before Big Ten tourney

Illinois Taylor Edwards (12) and Illinois Bella Loya (18) listen to Illinois head coach Tyra Perry in a Big 10 softball game at Eichelberger Field on UI campus in Urbana on Friday, April 5, 2019.The great fault with women's fast-pitch softball is the same one that signaled the virtual end of the once-popular men's sport in the past century.

It's too "fast-pitch." Male underarm slingers became too overpowering (and besides, the men had baseball).

As might be expected — with the distance a mere 43 feet from the pitcher's rubber to home plate — it's now set up for Wonder Woman to skew the balance. Give Olympic gold medalist Jennie Finch a quick-handed catcher and seven Wooden Indians and she's…