"Stove League" drama: Episode's seven and eight 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: 8.2 and 11.4% 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 eb 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 the above one is a newish behind the scenes video. 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.

 Let me try to set a record for zipping through a recap. By mistake deleted the post for the first two episodes which has put me way behind schedule and want to get all four of these recaps posted tonight which is a Tuesday. At the conclusion of the previous show the main scout Yang had been observed by Baek taking an envelope full of money from the mother of a high school player. At first sight it definitely appeared to be a bribe as Yang's draft picks have mostly been washouts, is he just selecting players because of payoffs?
 That wasn't the case as in the envelope was just $83, Yang had lent the money to the mother as her son needed to go to a hospital's ER recently. It wasn't an ethical thing to do, Yang won't be fired but could face some punishments. Baek is still disturbed at the players the scouting team has been drafting the past five years as very few make it to the majors and none have become stars. Much suspicion has fallen upon the scouting team's manager Ko and it was Se-Young who is having her doubts about Ko's honesty.
 Or should I say lack of honesty as she pressed the player Lee for some info about Ko. In the last reap he had been arrested for a fight outside of a bar but luckily Ko smoothed everything over. But why Se-Young had wondered, why are all of the players so devoted to Ko and he to them? Lee finally broke down and admitted back in high school he had given Ko some money so he would be drafted, not just him but it appears twelve others had also paid off Ko. Se-Young reported her findings to Baek and can't say she was a rat for revealing what underhanded things Ko was doing but she's just so devoted to the team.

 A meeting was set up with the entire staff, Baek wanted them there to witness what was going to happen to the scouting team. He played a video of the last draft where the Dreams team picked a pitcher first, it was actually the scout Yang who selected the player over Ko. After that selection Ko immediately looked back at where the parents were sitting which was caught on video. What it was about was that Ko was supposed to draft the player above Lee who instead was drafted by the Vikings team.
 And as you can see Lee had paid Ko $50,000 if he would be drafted #1 by Dreams, there's no way Ko could get out of it. Though he had many supporters on the staff what Ko did was inexcusable, there was no defense for what he did and it was far from the first time. While the scout Yang only received a minor demotion for his actions it was much more severe for Ko who was fired on the spot. Even when Ko pleaded his case to the team's VP Kwon it was a lost cause, Ko had been with Dreams for over twenty years as a player and scout but now that's all history.

 In a surprise to many Baek picked the demoted Yang to be the new head of the scouting unit. It really shouldn't have been a huge surprise as Yang is so dedicated and really knows all the ins and outs of baseball, perhaps if Ko had selected the players Yang wanted he'd still have a job. What's coming up was a bit of a shock to us viewers and wonder where this will lead to.
 Right above is the VP Kwon who is the nephew of the team's owner and he basically runs the Dreams team. We didn't learn about it until now which is near the end of the eighth episode but seems Kwon had plans for Baek to follow since day one. That's to disband the Dreams baseball team as they've become such money losers due to their ineptness. In the past Baek had been the GM of a few other teams which also disbanded which left me wondering why.
 Those teams had finished first in their leagues, one was a handball club while the other was a hockey team. Why would a team disband if they finished first, wouldn't they have many fans and be money makers? We don't know what took place with those teams but there still are many more episodes to go. Baek had told Kwon he would make sure Dreams was eventually disbanded but first he has to make sure the team is a winning franchise, why baffles me.

 Baek feels that pitching is the key to Dreams becoming a more competitive club which is why he traded his best hitter for the starting pitcher Kang in the second recap. He needs more than one solid pitcher and the team is on the hunt for a cheap yet effective one. Dreams doesn't have much money to spend on free agents or foreign players but they may have discovered an unknown future star. It's a Double-A player in America and the reason he wasn't in  the majors was because of injuries, he's number one on Baek's list to sign.
 With Se-Young he headed to America to sigh the pitcher Miles, also in tow was Jae-Hee who took vacation time to travel with them. The trio watched Miles pitch and it appears his injuries are a thing of the past, the price to sign him was only $500,000. However the GM Kim from the rival Vikings team also went to America, was he also aiming for Miles?
 That may be the case as the agent says there's new competition, now the asking price to sign his potential star has doubled to a million! That left Baek naturally furious and it also left him for a loss. Should be sign a pitcher who has a history of injuries but he could be healthy as his rivals also want to sign him. But then again his budget is way too small to spend so much of it on one player, how this turns out is a mystery until the next recap.

 Eight episodes and all have been top notch as they seem to be getting better and more interesting. Still have a long way to go in this series but have to admit haven't enjoyed a show so immensely for over a year and as I've mentioned if you're a baseball fan this would be a drama for you. As always have plenty of screenshots to help you follow the story a bit better, was going to rush through this recap but really didn't. With any luck will have the next four recaps exactly a week form now.