"Stove League" drama: Episode's nine and ten 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: 9.6 and 12.4% 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 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 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.

 Once again am a bit behind schedule doing these recaps as I've already viewed up to the eighth show, it's such a fun drama I'm zipping right through it. Would advise reading the post or two before this one as these posts are long enough without recapping what's taken place but have managed to cut down the length of these posts which does make them easier to read. But leading up to this show was that the new GM of the dismal Dreams team Baek had fired the head of scouting for the team due to him taking bribes to draft a player. Now Baek and the Operations director Se-Young must do more scouting, the pair traveled to America to check on a pitcher named Miles who was just in the minors but that was because of injuries. Baek thinks he may have the steal of the year but it didn't work out that was as we now go into the ninth and tenth episodes.

 Also in tow was Se-Young's assistant Jae-Hee, as mentioned Se-Young is the head of the Operations department. All three were impressed with the pitching of Miles and did have an agreement to sign him for $500,000. But his devious manager was secretly working behind the scenes and was able to get a contract worth a million from the Dreams rival team Pelicans. The highest Baek could offer was $900,000 and it may have been worth it to Miles as he would have been a starter which wasn't guaranteed with the Pelicans. No matter what strategy Baek used that extra $100,000 meant more to Miles who eventually signed with the other team.
 Baek and Se-Young couldn't make this a wasted so went scouting other players, the location was supposed to be in the LA area but it was actually in Hawaii. There wasn't one pitcher who impressed them in the least, Baek really needs another pitcher but won't throw away his money. But a few nights before the pair were to return to Korea a very lucky break occurred which was one of those where they happened to be in the right place at the right time. Their translator was a Korean named Robert Kill who was now an American but at one time had been a potential star in Korea. However he was injured during his senior year in high school and had traveled to America for treatment and had never returned. He had also gotten married, his wife developed a tumor which was another reason for Kill not going back to Korea but she's now cured and pregnant.
 Kill is still a young man, perhaps 25 or so and for years had kept his pitching sharp by practicing every night. One evening Se-Young and her assistant Jae-Hee had watched Kill pitching in secret and he still has the talent to be an ace pitcher. Baek stumbled on to the scene and was also very impressed with Kill's pitching, looks like his trip for a starting pitcher has paid off. However there were many problems with Kill returning to Korea such as him not doing his mandatory stint in the military. Baek assured him he could clear matters up, there had been a ban against Kill playing ball in Korea but it had been lifted a few years prior.

 Robert was Kill's new American name, in Korean his given name was Chang-Ju so think I'll just use Kill as not to confuse anyone. Kill really wants to play ball again but just felt too many Korean fans would be upset if he returned to the country. He seems like quite a respectable man and his main goal is to make sure he takes care of his family as his wife is expecting their first child. Baek has told Kill not to worry about any problems back home, follow his suggestions and Kill should be able to ease back into living back in his home country. So after a little bit of haggling it's settled that Kill will sign a contract for $500,000, that's $400,000 less than Miles would have cost so perhaps Beak can use that extra cash to sigh another player which the Dreams team desperately needs.
 Actually am trying to stretch things out a bit with the recap as this will probably be the shortest of any of them. The first 1/4 of these two half hour shows dealt with Baek's failure to sign Miles, the remaining 45 minutes was about Kill and the attempts to get him to return to Korea. Little more background on Kill then as we don't see too much of him in the next two shows. When he was a high school senior he had led his team to the championship game by winning four games in a row but didn't pitch in the final game due to his injury. He's still not liked too well in Korea as there had been many negative media posts about his going to America, then about him not returning and skipping out on his military service. For the past five years or so he had been living in the U.S. but not sure what he's really been doing for work, he was a translator for Baek but didn't seem to do much else.

 Baek had notified the Dreams manager and coaches about his signing of Kill which drew a mixed bag of opinions. Many knew of his talents but they too were worried about the public's reaction to Kill returning to Korea plus how good would be be after being out of organized baseball for so long?  Once again Baek has told his staff not to worry about the situation, when Baek wants something he appears to be a man who you can depend on. Took no time at all for Kill to sign the contract, along with Baek and Se-Young he heads back to Korea with his wife after being gone for seven years.
 Baek had notified the media about Kill's pitching for Dreams and there was a crowd waiting for him at the Incheon airport which is the team's home base. At the airport there was an immediate press conference as Baek wanted to get the ball rolling quickly on Kill easing back positively into Korea. It's not going to be as easy as Baek had hoped as a few reporters had pressed him and Kill about his return and his failure to do his mandatory military service.
 Being the astute man he is Baek had calmly stated that a few reporters out there had skipped out on their service too for shady reasons and also mentioned how many sons of elite politicians had also avoided the military. That seemed to settle the press down a bit save for one reporter. As the press conference was about to end a female reporter named Kim stepped up and asked some digging questions which through Baek for a loop. The tenth episode ended there but the next show picks up trying to answer the reporter's tough questions.

 Another solid episode but of all eight/sixteen shows I've viewed have a feeling this may be the worst of them, spending 45 minutes signing a new pitcher and moving him back to Korea seemed to drag a bit. But the next few shows are quite interesting and there's many things in the off season that a baseball team does that many may not think about. This is another mini marathon of recaps as there's three more following this one.