The Dodgers had just dropped a 1-0 decision to the Mets yesterday in the bottom of the ninth, yet catcher Todd Hundley was in the visitors’ clubhouse expounding on what a great baseball game it had been.

Any Mets fans who remember Hundley from his days at Shea know he’s not the kind of competitor to take losing well, even if he did collect all three of the Dodgers’ hit. Hundley can take this kind of a loss in stride because for the first time in three years, the game is fun again.

“That statement, that’s the whole she-bang,” said Hundley. “It’s a fun game again.”

His last full season with the Mets, 1997, was a painful one that ended with him undergoing reconstructive surgery on his right elbow. Hundley had smacked 30 home runs that season, one year after blasting a record 41 homers by a catcher in 1996.

But the right elbow was coming apart at the hinge and on Sept. 26, 1997, he lay on an operating table for two hours as doctors removed bone spurs and scar tissue and rebuilt the medial collateral ligament. Hundley played in just 168 games over the next two seasons, hitting a total of 27 homers.

He’ll never let on as to how much pain he played in during those two seasons. He returned to play 53 games for the Mets in 1998, hitting a woeful .161. On Dec. 1 of that year he was traded to the Dodgers and last season swatted 24 home runs, but hit just .207.

He spent the entire offseason working with Todd Clausen, the Dodgers’ strength and conditioning coach. Hundley says the elbow is fine and now he only has to worry about how pitchers attack him, his own mechanics – the same concerns every other player has.

“Every year is different,” said Hundley. “You feel different. Pitchers pitch you different. But I’m 100 percent again. Mentally and physically, I’m 100 percent.”

Hundley was 100 percent of the Dodgers’ offense yesterday. He singled past first base in the second, singled sharply to center in the fifth and singled up the middle in the seventh, going 3-for-4 and raising his average to .302. He has four home runs.

“Right now, I don’t think about numbers or any of that stuff,” said Hundley. “I think about how good it is to feel good. Everything else will come.”