"Stove League" drama: Episode's 23 and 24 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: 13.2 and 15.3% 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 two exhibition games between Dreams and Vikings took up close to forty of the sixty minutes for these two episodes. But seeing as how there may not be any MLB for a few months it was good to see any kind of baseball. That top screenshot was from the night before the first game when Baek ran into Lim. If you've read the recaps you know that Lim was the star player of Dreams and it was a huge shock when Baek traded him to the Vikings team. Lim had a cushy spot on the Dreams team and really didn't care that the team finished in last place four years in a row. Baek shook up his life badly and Lim still wants some sort of revenge for the trade which didn't happen in this recap and possibly never will.
 Time for some baseball and on the mound for the Dreams team is their new ace pitcher Kang. He was acquired in the trade for Lim and may be the best pitcher in the Korean league. Most players would have been upset going from the second place team to such a bad team like Dreams but Kang wasn't and he really wants to see the team do well. Dreams doing well may not be a problem with Kang as their ace as he pitched seven impressive shutout innings and what topped it off was striking out Lim, the pair despise each other immensely. But as you can see above the Vikings GM Kim was wondering why Kang was being taken out, it was the decision of the Dreams manager Yoon.
 It's only an exhibition game, he knows how terrific Kang is but wanted to see how another pitcher would do. That's the second year player Yoo who is so talented yet hasn't been able to put it together. Baek had sent him to play for an Australian team during the Winter but Yoo did so badly he was sent home. He has what the coaches call the 'YIPS' disease meaning he can't throw the ball over the plate, it's a psychological problem. That continued in the game as Yoo threw eight pitches for balls, he was yanked and the veteran pitcher Jang came in to shut the door as the Dreams won 3-0.

 The staff truly believes that Yoo can be such an asset to their team and had a meeting with him after the game. They talked about his delivery, how he thought while throwing and showed Yoo some videos of when he was pitching well, we'll see if that had any impact on the talented young pitcher. It's time for the second game and this time on the mound for the Dreams is their other new starting pitcher Kill. He was a controversial signing as he had moved from Korea to America when he was younger to have his shoulder repaired and had never returned to his home country until now. Though out of organized baseball for many years Kill did practice almost every day and looks like the Dreams team has a solid one-two punch in their rotation.
 Like Kang Kill pitched seven innings and left the game with a 2-0 lead. The manager Yoon wanted to see if the session they had with Yoo paid off as he was summoned in to possibly pitch the final two innings but it started off badly again. Yoo can't throw a strike to save his life as he walked the first two batters and threw three balls to the next player who just happened to be Lim. Out of the dugout came the pitching coach Choi who told Yoo two things, either strike him out or.... That second thing said wasn't learned until after Lim hit a towering homer to put the Viking up 3-2. What Choi said to Yoo was that if you can't strike him out then let Lim hit a homer.
 The Dreams team wasn't too concerned about winning the game as it didn't count in the standings. But with that homer being hit it meant that Yoo had finally thrown a strike which was the goal of what Choi had said. Yoo remained in the game for the final two innings but was hit hard as the Dreams lost 7-2. That score didn't matter but what did was that Yoo had been throwing the ball over the plate, he's gained some confidence back and now it's just a matter of working on getting out. Spring training didn't last too long as two days later it was over, perhaps it was just a mini one as opening day was still almost two months away.

 While the team on the field has improved immensely and things are looking up for them behind the scenes is a different story. Right above is Baek talking with his old buddy Hong-Man who has gotten a list for Baek of players who may be using drugs and their suppliers. The Korean pro league is supposed to cracking down on players who use performance enhancement drugs but how that turns out is unknown as that took place near the end of the second episode. Hadn't seen much of Kwon since his pummeling of the president's son four shows again, we do though in the final ten or so minutes but it wasn't a good thing seeing him again.
 First off Kwon has been given even more responsibility in running the Dreams team from the president. One of his first orders was to fire the long time CEO Ko from his position and that shocked us viewers. One reason Kwon gave was because of the people Ko had brought in to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the games. Baek was also at odds with the people chosen as they weren't celebs but instead local people who wouldn't attract any fans. We never did see Baek's reaction to the firing but have a feeling he knows a few others may be on the chopping block.
 That's made Baek quite tense around the office, he really lashed out one day at the marketing director Lim for not doing her job. Don't think she's the ballplayer's sister even though Jae-Hee jokingly said she was. Lim was once an excellent sales person who had made profits for the club but her work has slipped, Baek is trying to light a fire under some of his staff. That is if the front office doesn't do the job for Baek as the second episode ended on a real downer for one of the staff.
 That was of Lim's superior Byun who had once been against Baek but was now firmly on his side. Out of the blue a small team from the Jaesong office came to fetch him, that's the company that owns the Dreams team. They said that Byun was stealing money from the team and came to gather all of his documents plus they dragged him away while Baek watched on in fury. He was powerless to stop what was going on and proceeded to storm into Kwon's office demanding to know what's going on, have never seen Baek so furious. He didn't get his answer yet as once again an episode ended with Baek in a staring match.

 Getting close to the end as there's only eight more episodes to go. Much prefer dramas with only 32 shows but this is one of the few times I wish there forty as I've truly been enjoying this series which may be my #1 show of the year. Have been zipping through these episodes and recaps at a much faster pace, won't give an exact timeline but hope to finish this within the week. Then my problem will be what to watch next as whatever series I choose will be a step down.