"hall of fame" as an adjective: caps or no?

"Hall of Fame athlete Joe Schmoe" or "hall of fame athlete Joe Schmoe"?

I tend to go with the former, but I'm editing someone else's stuff and they have it lower.

It's a book, if that matters.

Thanks. My brain's not back into this just yet.

 

At our place, Hall of Fame is always up, adjective or noun.

It's NEVER hyphenated. No "Hall-of-Fame candidate"....

And it's "the Hall" standing alone.

It's our place, but I also think this is the right style.

Carry on.

 

If it refers to a specific hall, then it would be uppercase. Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripken.

Were it to be generic -- a hall of fame effort or some other atrocious usage -- then it would be down.

It probably should be hyphenated since it's a compound modifier, but I can accept an argument against that predicated on the fact that it's awkward.

 

Either can be correct, and either hyphenation choice can be correct. Pick one and go with it consistently.

 

Concur, but agree with SF that I would go uppercase and non-hyphenated.

 

I'm dealing with this all the time. If the book is strictly about baseball, for example, I would go with the official name in the first reference and then Hall of Fame member Andre Dawson after that. If it's multi-sport, you also would need to identify the sport. In a hockey hall of fame newsletter that I co-edit, there are frequent references to inducted members. For space purposes, we use Terry Sawchuk followed by (HOF 1985) or HOF member Terry Sawchuk. In a newspaper column I co-write we are allowed to get away with HOF member Terry Sawchuk provided the first reference in the column identified the specific hall of fame by its complete name. Of course, Hall of Fame is upper case when it's used in a sentence such as "Roberto Alomar will enter the Hall of Fame with Dawson." But no one had to worry about that unless the sentence read "Roberto Alomar will not enter the Hall of Fame with Dawson."

 

As a tangent, how do y'all feel about using "HOF" in headlines or in second references? It's one of those acronyms like "MLB" that used to be highly uncommon until the last 10-15 years or so, and by now it's pretty familiar and recognizable.

 

First, thanks for your vote.
Second, we tend to cap it when it referes to a specific hall of fame. Not sure why. But that's our style.

And I've used HOF in heds....but I try to avoid it both in the hed and body. I'll almost always put Hall instead unless that can be confusing.

 

I'd say upper case