CHICAGO – The lofty air of first place seems to have had its effect on Bobby Valentine. Before yesterday’s game the Mets manager was asked about the Mets ascendancy to first place in the National League East, and he was unsparing in his words of defiance that the Mets would maybe now get the credit they deserve for how far they have come in the past few years to finally take the division lead at a significantly late date in the season.

” It’s obviously been a progression of non-recognition,” Valentine said. “No matter what we’ve done, we have gotten very little the credit for it. Now that we’re in first place we won’t get any credit until we finish the job.”

Valentine was clearly speaking about the team as a whole, but he also addressed some personal attacks against him, that he can’t take a team to the playoffs, that players hate him and free agents would never sign here, and most of all that he should be fired as manager.

Although most of that criticism comes from either the media, the fan base and people from outside the Mets organization, Valentine could also have been talking about his own front office, which has only given him luke-warm support despite where he has guided the Mets over the past three seasons.

“It was a dog team for three years and has continually gotten better,” he said. “It was a good team since Day One of 1999 and that’s a fact, not perception.”

Not that Steve Phillips hasn’t done his part, but under Valentine’s leadership the Mets have gone from a sub-.500 team in 1996 to an 88-win team the past two years to first place on July 31 this year.

Perhaps Valentine is looking for a pat on the back from ownership, or a convincing vote of confidence from his general manager, or just some recognition of a job well done. Some think maybe Valentine has been vindicated for taking the Mets this far after hearing so much about how he has managed more games than any other person without making it to the playoffs.

“I don’t buy into vindication,” he said. “I know what I can do. I give my best ever day and some days that’s not enough. But most of the time in my life it has been very good.”

For years before he came to New York Valentine was criticized for not making the playoffs with the Rangers, or even as a player. Now, with that possibility squarely in front of him and his team, he was asked if he felt some vindication, or if that big ugly monkey that people wrote about was off his back.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” he said. “I don’t care about vindication or monkeys, or monkeys who write about vindication….This team is living up to what it should be doing. Other teams have spent in excess of 70 million and should be doing as well.”

Considering the seriousness of his tone, Valentine was asked if he wasn’t having fun, if the idea of being in a pennant race and of unexpectedly passing the Braves for at least one day in the post-All-Star Break period, gave him some enjoyment.

But for this manager, who has an unsurpassed passion for the game, this is his work and not his pastime.

“I don’t understand fun,” he said. “Fun is at the end of the season when you’re skiing or spending time with your family or socializing with friends. This is a big time job to think you can go and have fun, not in the clubhouse and in this office. Enjoy it? Yes. But I’m not sure your supposed to have fun.”

When it was suggested that it is, after all, just a game, he would have none of it.

“It’s semantics that this is a game,” he said. “It’s a job. It’s the silliest thing in the world to think it’s just a game. It’s a major competition, in major spotlight with major expectations. It’s called the Major Leagues.”