1987 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament

The 1987 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament was played at the end of the 1987 NCAA Division I baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Series, a double-elimination tournament in its forty first year. Eight regional competitions were held to determine the participants in the final event. Each region was composed of six teams, resulting in 48 teams participating in the tournament at the conclusion of their regular season, and in some cases, after a conference tournament.^[1] The forty-first tournament's champion was Stanford, coached by Mark Marquess. The Most Outstanding Player was Paul Carey of Stanford.

National seeds

For the first time, the NCAA selected eight national seeds and placed each in a different regional.^[1]

Bold indicates CWS participant.

• Arkansas
• Florida State
• Georgia Tech
• LSU
• Oklahoma State
• Pepperdine
• Stanford
• Texas

Regionals

The opening rounds of the tournament were played across eight regional sites across the country, each consisting of six teams.^[2] The winners of each Regional advanced to the College World Series.

Bold indicates winner.

College World Series

This was the last CWS to use a double-elimination format through the championship game. Under the format used from 1950 through 1987, the bracket was often adjusted after the field was pared to four teams in order to avoid rematches from earlier rounds. Starting in 1988 and continuing through 2002, the eight teams were divided into two four-team brackets, with the bracket winners meeting in a single championship game. In 2003, the single championship game was changed to a best-of-three series.

This CWS was best known for Stanford's dramatic 6-5 win over LSU in an elimination game. In that game, Stanford trailed 5-2 in the bottom of the 10th inning with 2 outs and nobody on base. Eventually, Freshman outfielder Paul Carey hit a walk off grand slam home run off LSU freshman (and future major leaguer) Ben McDonald to win the game.

References