"Stove League" drama: Episode's eleven and twelve 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: 11.6 and 14.1% 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
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'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.

 We left off with the above reporter Kim asking some difficult questions at Kill's press conference, he's the possible star pitcher Baek signed while in America. Those questions were too tough for Baek to answer at the time so he shut down the event immediately against the wishes of Se-Young. The following day the Dreams team held a showcase for Kill to showcase his talents. At one time he was one of Korea's brightest young pitchers until he hurt himself. That forced a move to America to have surgery on his shoulder but Kill never returned after being healed. So Kill never did his stint in the military which many in the media feel will make Kill a despised person.
 Not to Baek who seemingly has everything under control. At the showcase for Kill the reporter Kim was on hand and Baek refused to talk with her. He wouldn't even let her interview Kill as her questions may prove to be a bit embarrassing. Baek eventually agreed to Kim interviewing his potential star pitcher if the questions were soft ones, she agreed but Baek was still worried. Seems Kim has a reputation of adding in comments after an interview is done and would she do the same for Kill? That didn't happen as it was the last we see of Kim for now but have a feeling she'll be popping up in future episodes.
 Not everyone on the Dreams team was happy with the signing of Kill, it was a mixed back with the coaching staff and players. One staff member quit who was on the analytics team that was run by Yoo. He's been at the job for a while and though Yoo seems to know the stats and trends well it hasn't helped the Dreams team at all. With that one position open Baek felt they should hold interviews for the position with outsiders, Yoo was against it but with his dismal track record he couldn't argue Quickly ten 'experts' applied for the position and all were to be interviewed on the same day.

 Hard to call the applicants 'experts' as though most were adept at statistics none knew the game of baseball well. That is except for one applicant who you can see above in a wheelchair. That man's name is Young-Soo who we had seen briefly in a few episodes up until now but had no clue who he was. Knew he lived with Baek and it was finally revealed he was his younger brother. Young-Soo had a severe injury when he was eighteen playing baseball and since then had been in the wheelchair, he's now in his young thirties. But his love for baseball has grown and for many years has been a 'closet expert' as he's been writing a very popular column for the Yamanse baseball site.
 His older brother Baek had no idea of that column nor did he know Young-Soo was applying for the analytics position. He kept quiet until the very end when he confessed to Se-Young and Yoo that he was his younger brother. Baek was dead set against Young-Soo being hired so left the decision up to the pair. Se-Young had been so impressed with Young-Soo who truly knew everything there was about the sport, she wanted to hire him on the spot. Yoo too was impressed with Young-Soo but wouldn't admit it. He read Young-Soo's column avidly every day which he also wouldn't admit to during the interview.
 Yoo also felt that his new analytics employee should have been a ball player at one time as there's so many intangibles that stats don't show but of course Young-Soo had been an excellent player until his injury. The pressure from Se-Young was overwhelming so Yoo eventually agreed to hire Young-Soo for his team. For now Yoo isn't treating him that well at the position as Young-Soo is being given the most menial of tasks but sure that'll be changing soon as Young-Soo has such potential.

 Quite a bit does take place in these so hows as you can tell by the recaps but have been able to keep those posts at three medium sized segments. Have no idea why that's happening but I enjoy writing up shorter recaps as it gives me time to do other posts plus I know everyone enjoys reading shorter posts. Have read reviews at other sites which truly must be 25,000+ words, that must take a while to write up and to be honest I can never finish reading them.
 Back to Young-Soo and though he hasn't been given difficult tasks yet sure he will be playing an important role for the Analytics department. Granted Young-Soo does have a problem being in a wheelchair but to him and us viewers the person who has a bigger problem is his older brother Baek(Seung-Soo). He's blamed himself for his brother's injury and Young-Soo has repeatedly said not to as his brother had nothing to do with it. But since the injury Baek has treated him too softly and the two siblings grew a bit apart because of that, Baek felt being in a wheelchair meant Young-Soo couldn't work but as we've seen he's still got such a sharp mind.
 In the bottom screenshot above is Kwon who is the nephew of the president and for the most part runs the Dreams team. Have only talked about it briefly but Kwon is in charge of slowly disbanding the Dreams team as they're such a money loser. But every obstacle he's given Baek has failed as the new GM is such an ingenious man who can do anything with practically nothing. Nothing may be the case here as the order is to cut the budget for player salaries by 30%! Baek is furious at the order but he really has no choice, that'll be the main story in the next recap.
 Meanwhile the deposed director of scouting Ko,who was canned in episode four, still thinks he was treated unfairly which is far from the truth. What he's done is to create his own agency to represent the Dreams' players, he's going around trying to recruit the players who haven't signed a contract yet. He's got a mole still in the scouting department who was able to steal the list of salaries that the unsigned players were going to be offered. Ko for the next two shows is going to be such a thorn in the side of Baek and with that this recap comes to it's conclusion.

 Halfway through this four recap marathon and though early in the year it's shaping up to be my #1 drama for 2020. I'm definitely a man of lists but having one for my fave dramas of the year has never been done. Main reason is because I tend to watch many older shows, I may view 25 complete series this year but perhaps only 10-15 will be from 2020.