To put it nicely, it hasn't been a good year for baseball monument makers.

First, a statue engraver neglects to include a key apostrophe in Mr. Cub's most famous quote on the new Ernie Banks statue outside the entrance to Wrigley Field.

Now comes the news that someone in Kansas City misspelled Buck O'Neil's last name on a recently unveiled monument in the Forest Hill Cemetery where the baseball great is buried.

It's obviously hard to install a spell checker on slabs of marble or granite, but, seriously, you can't take a second to find out that his last name differs from Shaq's? As Aaron Barnhart, the O'Neil fan who sent me this tip, suggests, someone needs to be immediately heading out to the site with his tool belt and a proof reader looking over his shoulder. (Barnhart also notes there's a misplaced apostrophe elsewhere on the monument.)

However, since we're talking about the eternal optimist O'Neil here and because he'd have been the first to note that people make mistakes, I think we should look at two reasons to crack a smile over this misstep:

1) The O'Neil statue that just debuted in Cooperstown is awe-inspiring and apparently error-free. I can't wait to take a picture next to it before buying my tickets to the Hall.

2) This type of thing has happened to celebrities before, from Shelley Winters to Elvis (depending on whether you fall in the 'Aron' or "Aaron" middle name camp).