User reviews

As in doctor prisoner, this is again a atypical story centres on sports management. It shows male lead's effort to choose plot that is new to ordinary kdrama.

I am living in a small city and never has resources to develop sports, like the scale shown in the drama. It is interesting to know the team behind a sports team.

The pace of story is at times kind of slow. But most of the time the drama develops with great stories. Going aboard to interview foreign sportsman, taking of illegal drugs, selling and buying of team members. All these constitute a rich story and well-developed plot.

It is just disappointed for male lead to lose the best actor in Baesang. He will have more chance to win if there is a love line with a more beautiful female lead. Hope he could win in the next round of award presentation.

If you like Moneyball movie and want to watch it in serial movie, you can watch this. The pace at the beginning is a little bit slow, but believe me it would get much much better after that. One of my favorite K-Drama.

A low cost drama that uses low budget material and low manpower. The low cost material like CEO using low cost cars still showed the same no make senses. They also keep showing the same faces which are bored to say low manpower. However the story plot are nice from episode 1 to 14 but episode 15 beginning to get low expectation and quite bored. Final episode 16 is a low standard conclusion which make no sense. Sadly the writer did not think of a better conclusion. But overall its a short 16 episodes drama so it quite exciting to pass time.

This drama proves that winning a game doesn't all depend on just training hard but also been emotionally and psychological prepared is a factor. I really don't know much about baseball, but this drama really made me interested in at least knowing the rules of this game. The story tells how people especially are always fixed on the coaches and players when a team doesn't win a game ignoring the fact there could be some internal and management issues that doesn't motivate them to give their all. Yes, players should be blamed since they are the ones on the field but it wouldn't hurt to investigate the other factors causing their failure which every episode tries to address. Corruption, bribery, hiding of internal injuries and salary issues is what this drama tries to bring out. These issues are tackled so well with suspense that it makes someone who doesn't like sports to be glued to the drama. Overall, the drama is very fun and entertaining and also succeeds in getting its message across making it worthy to watch.

This drama hits all the right notes. Folks who trivialize saying 'this is Moneyball version of K-drama' are grossly downplaying the depth of this show. There is so much happening in each episode. The first episode instantly sets-up an intriguing plot and every episode unravels something interesting or tackles a deep rooted issue.

Although its set against a Sports (Baseball) backdrop it isn't simply a Sports story. Please don't turn away thinking its a Sports drama. Infact there is hardly any on-field action through its 16 episodes length. It focuses more on the management side of the team and the problems that pop-up after years of under-performance. Along the way you may even pick up few useful tips on topics such as negotiation, presentation skills and general management.

What I loved:

• Great storyline
• Fantastic acting (Namkoong Min is a Korean treasure, however he was aptly supported by Eun-bin Park and others)
• Good explanation of important Baseball stats (on Viki) and not dumping lot of numbers on our face (easy to follow for a novice like me)

It's a pity so few people have watched this drama. It deserves much more recognition and love.

Go Dreams!

P.S. There is no romance in this drama. Just so you know ;) It also won the Baeksang Arts Awards for Best Drama for the year 2020

Namgoong Min is a terrific lead in an outstanding cast. But I found the script uneven and draggy at points. Still, it's generally a fine series I enjoyed and recommend.

Tracking Min Namkoong's performances brought me to Stove League. As am NOT a baseball fan I put off watching it. Then when everything else looked mediocre I tuned in--and wow--the foundations of corruption of the people who never step up to bat--those who want a team to fail for their own purposes, greed, ethical corruption and just plan dirty dealing bring a lot of substance to this drama. Min is generally stone cold stoic throughout--but still manages to give off pressure cooker steam somehow--he's a truly great actor. I didn't expect this kind of role after One Dollar Lawyer. There's solid performances from the entire cast fleshing out individual personal stories which also make it worth watching. This is not a fluffy cotton candy baseball drama. Loving baseball is not necessary for enjoying the human drama. See how long it takes before you're throwing verbal abuse at the nasty humans on your screen of choice.

Its baseball, greatest sport ever and the best sport for making series and movies, nothing bad here and i think ive seen ever baseball movie made.Not a huge fan of the leading male but he's good in this actually plays the perfect GM So little background on the name, in the USA in the cold of winter people would sit around the hot stove and talk/mostly arguing about well anything baseball hinse the name "Hot Stove League".

enjoy it... i sure am

" Stove League " is the Chief Kim of sports.

Honestly, stove league was not for me. I didn't get entertained, and a few of the stories kept me interested. However, taken in consideration that maybe it wasn't my cup of tea, I'll review it without taking that factor in mind.

So, the story was interesting, as they presented the way the team was trying to get the Dreams, aka their baseball team. The stories were mostly humane, and the fact that they didn't add any unnecessary romance to it was a delight. The performances were really good too from all actors and actresses of the cast. The pace, presentation of the sports and training process, as well as the poster, were nailed to perfection.

So, seven out of ten.

I always like winter break or off season transfer saga in any sports name it base ball, soccer, basket ball, etc, its the best time to get ready for real war. Similar to other classic battle movie, we would like to see Zhuge Liang preparation and setup the battle to benefit his side.

I believe season 2 would be great movie for sports fans, especially Baseball lovers.

I watched this because of the presence of Eun-bin Park, even though I know nothing about baseball.

What struck me was the plot similarities with Ted Lasso: a struggling sports team bring in a manager with no knowledge of the sport because the owner wants the team to fail. The one thing missing was Ted Lasso himself. Here the manager concerned is much more cold and calculating, with the heart provided by the character played by Eun-bin Park.

Nevertheless, it seems that this series was made first and perhaps Ted Lasso took it as inspiration.

I was moderately entertained as I watched this, whereas I thought Ted Lasso was very good. So the absence of that character did suck something out of the entertainment for me. Perhaps baseball is just too alien to me also, whereas football is all around me, even though I don't follow it myself.

But hey, I was moderately entertained and Eun-bin Park is always worth watching.

I guess I did not like it that much because I am not interested in baseball. Also, Namgoong min has very passive acting and his voice sounds boring. I skipped a lot of parts and I don't know if there are some scenes that were good. But still I can at least rate it 5 for the other supporting actors.

I didn't know what to expect , since I'm not really into baseball or Sports. But wow I was surprised. The series was really interesting and captivating. I couldn't wait for the next episode. The struggles and issues that needed to be resolved were very entertaining. I really like how the issues were overcome. Loved how everyone began to work together to get to a common goal.

The writing was really good. The characters were perfect. We got to see there ups and downs and although confronted with situations that seemed lost, they preserved.

This was a great series. Don't be dissuade by it being a sports series, because it is more than that.