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I'm watching a baseball game and a home run is hit and the crowd goes nuts.

The camera cuts to the home dugout, and the most famous big-hitter on the team (who you'd think would have the corresponding biggest ego) is seen smiling and raising his arms and cheering; whereas a rookie, who had a home run earlier in the night, is seen in the same shot scowling and looking downwards, clearly unhappy that someone else had done well, even though it's on his own team and the extra run won them the game.

What's the word for that guy?

Not "schadenfreude", but kind of the inversion of that. And NOT just "envious", or "jealous". He wasn't those things as much as _________?

I'm thinking there is an exact word for this. (Or perhaps a poignant idiom?) "Nebbish" was the first word that came to mind (not that I've ever used that once in my life) but as I look it up, it's not the meaning I thought.

(..Dodgers: Alexander Guerrero.)

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  • I think just envy an jealousy are the main aspects here. It was also mean of him to behave like that.
    – user66974
    Apr 30, 2015 at 6:38
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    One would think that the Germans have a word for it.
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 30, 2015 at 22:46

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a rookie, who had a home run earlier in the night, is seen in the same shot scowling and looking downwards, clearly unhappy that someone else had done well, even though it's on his own team and the extra run won them the game.

There is only one word that fits your requirement, with a proviso, that it is a rather formal word and that it's more often used in the negative, you can say:

"..the rookie is seen in the same shot scowling and looking downwards, begrudging Gyerrero his home run"

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    This describes admirably what the rookie did on that occasion, but I had the feeling the OP was after a word to describe that personality type. I'd like to have such a word myself. There are indeed people who think that happiness is zero-sum, so that if you are happy you must necessarily be depriving me of my share of the fixed quantity there is to go round. I just bet that Yiddish has it.
    – David Pugh
    Apr 30, 2015 at 17:41
  • @DavidPugh, if the verb is admirably (thanks) fit, the adjective fits likewise a begrudging character/fellow. As to the zero-sum theory, that is true only in competitions, if you learn to get happiness from good deeds, the sum is infinite
    – user119052
    May 1, 2015 at 10:46
  • Of course the true nature of happiness is non-zero-sum (as you say, the ideal-type of zero-sum games is chess not love), but my point is that some people think the cake is limited and the best way to increase their share is to decrease yours. If you have really never tangled with zero-sum players, then I'm happy for you. If, OTOH, you come to suspect that a hypothetical S.O. is a zero-sum player, run for your life. They don't seem to be curable.
    – David Pugh
    May 1, 2015 at 10:53
  • I wonder now if game theory has some formal Latin term for it or something. The two teams have a zero-sum relationship between each other as they fight for total wins in the regular season, and certain players on a team are competing for the same position, and may be forced to exhibit zero-sum competitive behavior, but what then do you call the ..false-positive (for lack of a better term) of that behavior or frame of mind? Like when a 6yo becomes hurt and indignant when his 5yo little brother is cherished by the parents for doing something well?
    – ipso
    May 1, 2015 at 21:06
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You mention "schadenfreude" (pleasure at another person's or group's misfortune) – the double-opposite of this is "gluckschmerz" (pain at another person's or group's good fortune). Much like "schadenfreude", I don't believe that there's an English equivalent as the German describes it so succinctly!

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    gluckschmerz doesn't seem to have made dictionaries but can be found in psychology papers and blogs. Although there is a claim that it's not a real German word, according to languagehat, that doesn't really impact on whether it's valid English.
    – Stuart F
    Jan 12 at 9:13

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