"Stove League" drama: Episode's 21 and 22 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: 12.1 and 16.5% 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, fired in ep. 4
Kim Ki-Moo as Yang Woo-Seok.... top scout
Yoon Sun-Woo as Baek Young-Soo.... Seung-Soo's younger brother who needs a wheelcahir, joined Dreams analytic team in episode eleven

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 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.

 The last pair of recaps were done just a few days ago if you want to read them to see where we stand. An intense ending to end off the prior episode as the Dreams VP Kwon, in the above two middle screenshots, got into a major scrap with his cousin. Kwon was quite intoxicated and really beat the man to a pulp at a bar, more than was necessary but Kwon's stress level was too overwhelming to contain. However his cousin Kyung-Joon was no ordinary man as he was the son of the Dreams team president who was also the main CEO of the Jaesong group who owned the team.
 The following day Kwon rightfully expected the worse from the president but that's not how it turned out. If anything the president respected Kwon even more as he can rely on him for business matters while his son is quite inept and a Grade A bastard. So Kwon was given even more responsibilities with the main one being the disbandment of the team which has been discussed off and on since episode four. This episode aired towards the end of January when teams are getting ready to go to their spring training sites, to Kwon that's a waste of money and told the new GM Baek to cancel it!
 Kwon has done a few things to make Baek furious but this was the biggest bombshell to date, who ever heard of a team not having spring training? Most Korean teams travel overseas as in January and February it's still too cold in the country to play ball. The Dreams team have no options as they'll have to remain local to train which naturally infuriated all of the players, coaches and staff. But Baek's hands are tied, as much as he wants the team to have their best spring training ever it probably won't happen as they'll be staying near their home base in Incheon.

 Baek even had an emergency meeting of the league's general managers where he called out the unfair travel situation of them and a pair of other teams. While most most teams are located in the Seoul region the Dreams isn't and they travel more than any other team which is such a handicap to them. That plea fell upon deaf ears but don't think that was the main reason for Baek calling for the meeting, to me he wanted to hear more about how the other teams trained. As he imagined most teams travel overseas to America or Australia, he couldn't tell the other general managers yet about his predicament. But Baek did learn one key bit of new that the league would be coming down harder on drug users, he's not worried and we wondered if that wasn't a reason for him trading their star Lim.
 Baek called another meeting which was with the Dreams staff, coaches and one player. That player was the veteran pitcher Jang who seems like he'd make a superb coach. He had been on the team eight years prior when the Dreams team finished second and for the only time qualified for the playoffs. Baek wanted to know from Jang what made that team so good, was it the players or other behind the scenes happenings? A combination of the above Jang said but more of the behind the scenes people. For instance they had an excellent bullpen catcher who helped the pitchers out immensely along with having a talented lefty pitcher who threw batting practice.
 Plus the team back then had a conditioning coach which resulted in many less injuries, that trio was a key reason Dreams had once been so successful. In secret Baek developed a plan after the meeting, with his trusted allies of Se-Young and Jae-Hee the three will do whatever it takes to get those people back on the Dreams team. Easier said then done as none were receptive to the idea as all had new lives where they were doing well. But Jang pitched in as his restaurant owner friend Kim had been the bullpen catcher, took a bit of work but he's convinced his friend to rejoin the team much to the fury of his wife.

 Wasn't easy to get the other two former coaches back with Dreams either but eventually both are reunited with the team. Lee had been the conditioning coach and these days he was very successful training celebrities. But Se-Young wouldn't take no for an answer, perhaps Lee was making more money but did he feel the same satisfaction he had working with a ball team? The answer was no as he accepted her offer as didn't the batting practice pitcher Heo. The reason he had left the team was that he threw a bean ball at one of the batters who happened to be the ex-Dreams star player Lim. It was the wrong thing to do but once Baek heard why he understood to a certain extent and signed him on the spot, the CEO Ko wasn't too thrilled with the added expenses. The team may be disbanded in the future but Baek wants to go out as a winner.
 The first day of training arrives and the team is bused to a location which wasn't revealed to us. But it's a small stadium along the shore, perhaps where a college team plays? The attitude for the team has dramatically changed as the players are hyped up about the upcoming season. With some new players, the old coaches returning to the team and with a staff believing in Dreams it appears this may be the first time in five years they won't finish in last place. Training goes quite well in the first few days but there will be a potential problem which is that Dreams won't have any pro teams to play in exhibition games.
 That's what was presumed at first but one night Baek ran into his new 'buddy' at a bar. That man was Kim who is the GM of the Vikings team, they've finished in second place the past few seasons. The owner of that team was getting tired of paying such a huge amount of money to send the team to America for their spring training so the Vikings team has been training on Jeju island. Kim hadn't been aware Dreams was still in Korea and that fact will work out well for both teams as a pair of games has been set scheduled.
 The weather for the first game looks fine, bit cold but sunny. Have to presume these two games were filmed back in late October or early November as this episode aired in the last week of January. It's time for the first exhibition games and what everyone was wondering about was the star outfielder Lim who had been recently traded to the Vikings by Baek for the starting pitcher Kang. At first no one on the Dreams team thought it was a good trade but as time went on it came to light that Lim was an overrated player and a cancer in the clubhouse. As this episode ended Lim strolled on the field to where Baek was standing, the two had an intense stare off as this recap has hit it's conclusion.

 This new method for writing recaps up is working out well. What I used to do was watch 3-4 shows, then pen these posts which would end up taking a while. Now after I view an episode have been writing these recaps up and seems to be working out so much better without the burden of having to write up four posts. Of course you wouldn't realize it by reading these but it's also allowed me to do these posts much quicker, why do certain simple things take me so long to figure out?