The 1981 Big Ten Conference baseball tournament was held at Ray Fisher Stadium on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from May 15 through 17. The top two teams from the regular season in each division participated in the double-elimination tournament, the first such event sponsored by the Big Ten Conference to determine the league champion. Michigan won the first tournament championship and earned the Big Ten Conference's automatic bid to the 1981 NCAA Division I baseball tournament
Format and seeding The 1981 tournament was a 4-team double-elimination tournament, with seeds determined by conference regular season winning percentage within each division. The top seed from each division played the second seed from the opposite division in the first round. Team W L PCT GB Seed East Division Michigan 10 4 .714 8 6 .567 7 9 .438 6 8 .429 5 9 .367 West Division 13 3 .813 11 3 .786 8 6 .571 3 13 .188 3 13 .188
Tournament
All-Tournament Team The following players were named to the All-Tournament Team. Pos Name School P Steve Ontiveros Michigan P Bob Hallas Purdue C Gerry Hool Michigan 1B Greg Beno Purdue 2B Mike Ledna Purdue 3B Chris Sabo Michigan SS Bill Piwnica Minnesota OF Jim Paciorek Michigan OF Greg Schulte Michigan OF Terry Steinbach Minnesota DH John Young Michigan
Most Outstanding Player Gerry Hool was named Most Outstanding Player. Hool was a catcher for Michigan.
References