"Stove League" drama: The final recap.... episode's 31 and 32

 Air Dates: December 13th until February 14, 2020 on SBS, two half hour episodes aired on Friday and Saturdays at 10:00 pm

 Ratings: 16.0 and 19.1%

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, transferred to the scouting team in episode 23

Son Jong-Hak as Ko Kang-Seon.... ex-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. 8
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.

 Most of these longer dramas tend to be a bit anti-climatic when they hit the end and in a way this series followed that pattern. Pair of interesting episodes that lasted for 62 minutes but it could have been cut down by ten or so. But that's really just a minor complaint as this may end up being my #1 drama of the year though there is a long way to go. Have been doing well at keeping these recaps a bit shorter at three segments and will continue that pattern. But much did happen which I won't have the room to fully explain so highly recommend viewing the screenshots which should fill in any details that may have been left out and they do make it easier to follow the story.

 Major development ended off the previous recap which I hope you read and that's of the announcement that the Dreams baseball team will be disbanding. The Daesong Group have been the owners for over thirty years, they're changing their business ways and no longer care about the team. The main owner and especially his nephew who is the Dreams' CEO Kwon haven't even looked for a potential buyer, they just want to get rid of the club as soon as possible. When the GM Baek heard of the impending action he rushed over to the Jaesong HQ where he luckily ran into the president in the lobby, while this was going on Kwon was having a press conference about the Dreams disbanding.
 That event wasn't a long affair as Kwon answered all of one question and left the podium quickly but we'll be seeing much of him in these two shows. Baek had zero success in persuading the owner to either not disband the Dreams team or to sell it, he just wants to dump them as fast as possible as it now appears Baek is left with no alternatives. Kwon started out as a decent character who did support Baek but with the pressures from the owner who was his uncle they became bitter rivals. But Kwon deep down does care about the team and unknown to most staff, save for Baek, he had been a lifetime Dreams fan who often went to games with his father when Kwon was quite young.
 Baek had pleaded with Kwon to sell the team, he won't have to do any of the work as Baek will hunt prospective buyers. As mentioned secretly Kwon was baseball fan so he was able to convince the president to give Baek one week to sell the team, why not try to get the $20 million which Baek says he can get for the team. But with just one week to get a deal done there wouldn't be much time for finding buyers, especially ones that had the large amount of spare money. However it appeared Baek had planned for the team possibly being sold and had one company in mind which was a growing tech firm called PF.

 This next scene was extremely long, I'll bet twenty minutes(!) so will try to make the very long story somewhat brief. That young man who you see above is Lee who is the owner of PF, they're a tech company which had designed a very successful portal website and is flowing with cash. Lee went back and forth with what he wanted to do, buy the Dreams team or take a pass? A few years prior the company had attempted to create a new team for the KPL but it was just too much for them to start a team from scratch and especially when none of them had any baseball experience.
 Baek gave a very detailed presentation for the young owner listing all of the pluses that acquiring a team could do for PF which stands for 'Playground Friends". Baek's reasons for Lee buying the team were all solid, Lee was impressed but not enough yet to buy the team. It was the 'personal reason's' that Baek gave which finally made an impact with Lee. Though he's so successful and wealthy over the years he's lost his friends because of the company and really lives just to work. Plus wouldn't making an impact in the community have such a lasting positive effect for his company as many tech firms come and go rapidly.
 Those and a few other reasons were finally enough for Lee to come to a decision... he will buy the Dreams team but only under his conditions. First the team would be relocated from Incheon to Seoul, their name would be changed and the staff would all be dismissed. Those conditions were not acceptable to Baek but it was his trusty operations manager who came to the rescue. Se-Young was at the presentation and stressed that though the Dreams team finished in the cellar the past four seasons they may have the most devoted fans. Their attendance was actually better than many of the teams in Seoul who had been fighting for the pennant and much of that had do with the current staff. Lee was quite impressed with her and naturally Baek, so after a bit of wheeling and dealing the sale was successful as nothing will be changing about the team save for their owner though now the name will be PF Dreams.

 That's Kwon above in the bottom screenshot and it was nice to see him get a bit of revenge on the president. He did compliment Baek on the sale of the team though it may mean Kwon could be out of a job at the Jaesong Group. He marched into the president's office where he gave the president and his useless son a berating which they deserved. Kwon even gave an envelope full of cash to the president. He had paid for Kwon's college fees and the envelope had cash to cover every last cent. Plus Kwon told the president what a lowlife person he was for treating his brother so badly in the past who of course was Kwon's father.
 Coming down to the end and there was a huge celebration to announce that the PF firm were the new owners, this finally looks like the year Dreams will contend for the pennant. The entire staff deserves credit for the potential success, especially Se-Young but of course the main person was Baek. However he won't be around to share in the glory as he had a secret pact with the new owner Lee, once the sale was complete Baek had to leave the team which Baek had agreed to. Lee felt that Baek carried too much baggage from his past, because of that he wouldn't get the support of the company board for the sale which Baek understood completely. But as the final show ended Baek had received a call from Kwon and it appears the two may be running a different sports team together.
 That took place seven months after his firing, the time is now October. That means it's time for the Korean World Series and who should be in the finals than.... Dreams! They're facing off against the first place team who were the Sabres and the Dreams team was quickly up in the first game. With that the drama came to it's conclusion and this is one show I'm sad to see end.

 Will have a few other ramblings after the pics but was just a tad disappointed in the ending. It wasn't a bad one but what it did was erase the possibility of a season two. Bet that would have been another superb series had it say aired from September to November and showed how the team did through the season. But all in all this was one of the best series I've viewed, not a dull moment and what I really enjoyed was that the characters were so down to earth and the story was so believable. Will give this a final rating of 9.1/10 which is quite high for me, could have gone a tad higher with the rating.

 Eun-Bin has become my fave Korean actress, in the last two years have viewed four of her dramas plus a film. But that may be it for a while as there's nothing else she's been in that I want to view all that badly, "Age of Youth" looks okay but those 'girly shows' aren't my cup of tea. Not sure what's up next, "Healer" is a possibility but would prefer to watch a shorter series first, say one that only has five or so episodes. Will take a week off from dramas so do have a bit of time do decide what's next, there's so many it's hard to make a decision.