This weekend was the big Reds’ Hall of Fame induction gala when the Reds welcomed three first basement of various eras to the hallowed halls of its HOF:

• Sean Casey played with the Reds 1998 – 2005
• Dan Driessen played with the Reds 1973 – 1984
• John Reilly played with the Reds 1880 – 1891

That last one must be the “museum” part of “Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.” I don’t know the era well enough to know whether his numbers were actually any good, but at 6’3″ in the 1880s it’s little wonder they called him “Long John.” He must have been quite a beast.

Plenty of folks had an up-close view of the gala, and it sounds like it was a zany-fun time. Check out some of these posts to help take your mind off last night’s game:

• Meggie Zahneis has a feature piece on MLB.com about the event.
• Dave at OMG Reds offers a bulleted list of observations from the gala, and a lovely picture of cake.
• The Cincinnati Reds blog on Cincinnati.com put up a list of live-tweets written while it happened.

My personal thought about the induction, though, is a little different than the others. What I notice is that if Casey were on the roster today, he wouldn’t even be the oldest one: Miguel Cairo has his beat by two months.

Boxscore

The Reds lost another heartbreaker last night 4-3.

Mike Leake was the starter for the contest. He was recently swapped in the rotation with Mat Latos, ostensibly because he’s too similar to Bronson Arroyo to have them starting back to back, and not because Latos has been pretty terrible lately. Leake put in a strong performance yesterday, allowing 2 runs (earned) on 5 hits through 8.0 innings pitched.

It was Aroldis Chapman who got the short end of this game by blowing the save in the 9th inning. He managed to strike out one, but then Joe Mauer smacked a double to left, setting up Josh Willingham to homer them both in. The Reds had the bottom of the inning to recover, but that didn’t turn out to be enough time.

On the offensive side, Wilson Valdez continues to inch his way into our hearts, but it’s still a long road, especially when he grounds out to end the game. He went 2-for-5 last night with a run scored and an RBI, which helped bring his AVG up to .237 and OBP to .244. Perhaps these are not the traditional numbers of a #2 hitter, but they’re better than almost all the starting pitchers.

The other RBI were brought in by Joey Votto who broke his 2-game hitless streak with a 2-run home run in the eighth inning. Votto was on deck when the game ended.

The loss brings the Reds’ record to 39-32. Today they begin a series with the Brewers in Cincinnati. Latos (5-2, 5.20 ERA) takes on Yovani Gallardo (6-5, 4.22 ERA). First pitch at 7:10 p.m.