In Mountain Lion, I would like to receive messages notifications in my notifications center WITHOUT it opening up the application.

I would like for my notifications to just show something like a red badge with maybe a number by it that represents the number of unread messages I have. I DO NOT want the OS to open the Messages app every time I get a new message. It takes me away from the app I'm currently using and I don't like that. I'd rather just keep Messages unopened until I click on one of the notifications. Is that possible?