The SEC Baseball Tournament is getting a major tech upgrade this year in Hoover, Alabama, and league commissioner Greg Sankey has been waiting for this moment for nearly a decade.

Running from May 19-24, this year's tournament will debut an ABS (automated ball-strike system) challenge, bringing a new layer of precision to America's pastime. Think of it as baseball's version of a coach's challenge in football or basketball — but with the stakes of every pitch.

Sankey's vision for this innovation traces back to 2018. He was sitting in Yankee Stadium during a heated rivalry game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox when then-manager Joe Girardi stormed out of the dugout to argue a blown call in a tight one-run game. The MLB responded by bringing out a boom box and headsets to review the play.

"It took all the emotion out of the moment," Sankey recalled Monday at the Associated Press Sports Editors Southeast Region meeting. "Let's just get to the right answer, to the extent we're able to."

The commissioner saw the system in action again during this year's Final Four, catching an Arizona Diamondbacks game. He was impressed by how quickly and clearly the technology delivered its verdicts — ball or strike — with the display visible to everyone in the stadium.

"It was fascinating; it was clear," Sankey said. "What's amazing, for all the criticism, the variances are pretty small between what is a ball and what is a strike."

The SEC staff was already laying groundwork for this change, with the only hurdle coming from the NCAA rules committee. But Sankey sees this as another step in the conference's tradition of staying ahead of the curve.

"My advocacy is, we have this great track record of what I would describe as being on the leading edge," he said, "and making sure the homework is done and the system's implemented well."