| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | October 6–28, 1981[1] |
| Teams | 8 |
| Final positions | |
| Champions | Los Angeles Dodgers (5th title) |
| Runner-up | New York Yankees (33rd World Series appearance) |
| Tournament statistics | |
| MVP | Ron Cey, Pedro Guerrero, and Steve Yeager (LAD) |
The 1981 Major League Baseball postseason was the playoff tournament of Major League Baseball for the 1981 season. The season had a players' strike, which lasted from June 12 to July 31, and split the season into two halves. Teams that won their division in each half of the season advanced to the playoffs. Teams faced each other in a League Division Series for the first time, a round of the postseason that did not return until 1995, where it became a permanent addition. The winners of the LDS moved on to the League Championship Series to determine the pennant winners that face each other in the World Series.
The four teams from the previous year's postseason – the New York Yankees, Houston Astros, defending American League champion Kansas City Royals, as well as the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, all returned to the postseason. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics also appeared, and the Milwaukee Brewers made their first postseason appearance. This postseason was also the first to feature a team from outside the United States, the Montreal Expos, who made their sole appearance in the postseason this year; the team did not return to the postseason again until 2012 after they moved to Washington, D.C. to become the Washington Nationals. This was the last edition of the postseason to feature the Yankees until 1995.
The postseason began on October 6, 1981, and ended on October 28, 1981, with the Dodgers defeating the Yankees in six games in the 1981 World Series. It was the fifth title for the Dodgers overall and their first since 1965.