| 1981 American League Division Series | |||||||||||||
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| Teams | |||||||||||||
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| Dates | October 6 – 9 | ||||||||||||
| Television | ABC KPIX-TV (Athletics' broadcast) WDAF-TV (Royals' broadcast) | ||||||||||||
| TV announcers | ABC: Al Michaels and Jim Palmer KPIX: Bill King and Harmon Killebrew WDAF: Al Wisk and Denny Trease | ||||||||||||
| Radio | CBS KSFO (OAK) WIBW (KC) | ||||||||||||
| Radio announcers | CBS: Ned Martin and Bill White KSFO: Bill King, Lon Simmons and Wayne Hagin WIBW: Denny Matthews and Fred White | ||||||||||||
| Umpires | George Maloney, Joe Brinkman, Steve Palermo, Don Denkinger, Jim Evans, Jim McKean | ||||||||||||
| Teams | |||||||||||||
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| Dates | October 7 – 11 | ||||||||||||
| Television | ABC WPIX (Yankees' broadcast) WVTV (Brewers' broadcast) | ||||||||||||
| TV announcers | ABC: Keith Jackson, Don Drysdale and Howard Cosell (Games 1–3, 5) Don Drysdale and Howard Cosell (Game 4) WPIX: Phil Rizzuto and Frank Messer (Games 1–3) Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White (Games 4–5) WVTV: Kent Derdivanis, Mike Hegan and Steve Shannon | ||||||||||||
| Radio | CBS WABC (NYY) WISN (MIL) | ||||||||||||
| Radio announcers | CBS: Ernie Harwell and Curt Gowdy WABC: Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, and Fran Healy (Games 1–3) Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, Bill White and Fran Healy (Games 4–5) WISN: Lorn Brown and Bob Uecker | ||||||||||||
| Umpires | Larry McCoy, Dale Ford, Ken Kaiser, Dave Phillips, Al Clark, Mike Reilly | ||||||||||||
The 1981 American League Division Series (ALDS), the opening round of the 1981 American League playoffs, began on Tuesday, October 6, and ended on Sunday, October 11. The Division Series were approved by team owners on August 6 in response to the 1981 Major League Baseball strike,[1] which caused the cancellation of roughly one-third of the regular season between June 12 and August 9; by the time play was resumed, it was decided that the best approach was to have the first-half leaders automatically qualify for postseason play, and allow all the teams to begin the second half with a clean slate.