"Stove League" drama: Episode's one and two recap

 Air Dates: December 13th until February 14, 2020 on SBS, two half hour episodes aired on Friday and Saturdays at 10:00 pm

 Ratings: 3.3 and 5.5% but the numbers increased so much it hit 20% for the final show.

Main Cast: It's a very huge one and you can see some of the main characters in the above pic, won't list all now but will edit this as time goes on adding or subtracting to it.

Namgung Min as Baek Seung-Soo.... new GM for the Dreams baseball team even though he didn't know much about the sport, had been a GM for a handball and hockey team.

Park Eun-Bin as Lee Se-Young.... gung-ho young female working in the operations department for the Dreams team, first female in Korea to have that honor plus lives and dies for her team.

Oh Jung-Se as Kwon Kyung-Min.... nephew of the owner of the Dreams team and really has control of the club, was Baek's biggest supporter at first.

Joe Byeong-Gyu as Han Jae-Hee.... Se-Young's assistant in the operations department

Son Jong-Hak as Ko Kang-Seon.... main CEO of Dreams.

Kim Do-Hyun as Yoo Kyung-Teak.... general exec in the front office

Kim Soo-Jin as Im Mi-Sun.... head of marketing

Park Jin-Woo as Byeon Chi-Hun.... another main exec in the front office
Lee Jun-Hyeok as Ko Se-Hyeok.... leader of the scouting team
Kim Ki-Moo as Yang Woo-Seok.... top scout

Lee Eol as Yoon Seong-Bok.... manager of the Dreams baseball team

Ha Do-Kwon as Kang Doo-Ki.... ace pitcher just obtained in a trade

Jo Han-Soo as Lim Dong-Gyu.... popular Dreams outfielder traded for Jang

Cha-Yub as Seo Yeong-Ju.... catcher for the Dreams team

Kim Min-Sang as Lee Cheol-Min.... bench coach for Dreams

Son Kwang-Eop as Choi Yong-Gu.... pitching coach for Dreams

Lee Dae-Yeon as Kim Jong-Mu.... GM for the rival Vikings team

 Whew, as mentioned above will be tweaking that huge cast list as we go on. If you're a baseball fan and I am then this would be a drama you'd definitely get into. The action began during the final game of the 2019 Dreams team season and as the title says it's what goes on during the off season in baseball. Like many current Korean dramas it's an hour show that was cut in half to make two so it aired on sixteen nights with 32 episodes. There's many, many videos on YT for the drama, will have a different one for each post and above is behind the scenes one featuring Eun-Bin. There aren't many baseball scenes as it was the team's final game but the ones we do see on occasion were filmed at the Munhak Stadium in Incheon where the real team SK Wyverns play.

 Good and bad news about this post....

 The bad is that an hour or so ago deleted by accident the recap I wrote up for these first two episodes. Really can't recall everything that was written and even if I could there's not enough time tonight to write a complete one. 
 But on the good side is that this post will be much shorter than most recaps. It actually was the shortest of the four I just wrote up and any major details will be covered in the next three posts when the action began to pick up. So will just give a brief summary of a a few major characters and there's plenty of screenshots to follow the story. But as mentioned not as much took place this show though it was an enjoyable watch.

 The Dreams baseball team is the worst club in their pro Korean league and has been in last place four years in a row. This season was the worst of all as the team only won 43 out of a possible 144 games. Things were so tense on the club that during their final game of the season there was a melee in the dugout between the players and coaches.
 Shortly after the game their elderly general manager retired, he had been around baseball for decades but the modern game had passed him by. So first order for the Dreams team is to sign a new GM, in charge of the hiring is the CEO Ko along with Se-Young. She's the head of the Operations department which oversees all trades, fee agent signings, scouting and more. She's the only female in the league with that position and you'll be seeing much of her.
 You'll also be seeing much of Baek who is above in the bottom screenshot. Though he's been the GM for other sports teams he doesn't know much about baseball, yet that is. Against all odds and especially the wishes of Se-Young he was hired as the new GM. In his corner was the VP Kwon who is the owner's nephew and felt the club needed a drastic change.

 Baek comes into his new job all gung-ho and has many plans to make the club competitive. Against the wishes of many he decided to keep the team's manager Yoon who is a respected baseball man but had been saddled with many bad players. That's mainly the fault of the scouting department and they're the focus of the third and fourth recaps. The major change which Baek wants to do is to trade the Dreams best player Lim who hit over .300 with forty home runs. But as we learn in the next post he's actually quite overrated and when Lim learned of Baek possibly trading him from a coach the man went into a rage.
 Lim had won a gold glove award for his fielding though many considered him to be below average. After the awards ceremony Lim brought the heavy trophy to Baek's residence and threw the gold glove through the windshield of his vehicle. Lim also left an envelope full of cash to pay for the damages. That scene with Baek's windshield getting smashed took place in the final minute of episode two as this mini recap comes to it's conclusion.

 Oooops, not so quickly with that end as more did happen. Lim did eventually get traded to the Vikings team but not before he made life even more miserable for Baek. First he had a pair of his henchmen beat the new GM in an alley which sent Baek to the hospital. Plus after that he sent those same two men along with a pair of others to attack Baek once again while Se-Young was giving him a lift home but to his rescue came an old friend, don't know what Lim was thinking but Baek wasn't a man who is easily intimidated. After those incidents Baek held a meeting with the staff to show why he wanted to trade Lim who was vastly overrated due to the playing in a hitter's park.
 But that trade may pay off well for Dreams as they acquired a starting pitcher named Kang. He's one of the top aces in the league who had once been on Dreams but had been traded by the whims of Lim. Baek had really been doing his homework on the analytics of baseball which really impressed his new staff. Though Lim was the star player he never lifted Dreams out of last place, with Kang on the team the attitude has become much more positive plus in the trade Baek was able to get one of the best setup pitchers in the league. Through the first eight shows noticed Baek is concentrating on an improved pitching staff as this now really is the end of this somewhat mini intro post.

 Sorry again for deleting that original post and making this one so much shorter but there truly wasn't time to write up a complete recap. However, if you read the next three posts don't think you'll be missing any of the major details of what occurred in this show through eight episodes. Many of the characters we met in show one were players from the Dreams team and we rarely saw any of them after these two half hour episodes. So all in all you'll know everything by reading the recaps after this one and that's the first time I've ever deleted a post by accident, there's no chance of recovery.