WORLD SERIES: ATLANTA BRAVES vs. CLEVELAND INDIANS : One of These Big Losers Will Win It : Game 1: Sport will declare its first champion since 1993. Maddux faces Hershiser in opener.

Lance Ito was merely another judge, Michael Jordan was becoming a baseball player, and Newt Gingrich was a little-known Georgia congressman.

It was the last time baseball had a World Series.

There still is no commissioner or labor agreement, but two years after Joe Carter hit the game-winning home run off Mitch Williams to clinch the championship for the Toronto Blue Jays, the World Series is back.

It may be the battle of the politically incorrect--with activists planning to protest the participants’ nicknames--but tonight, the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves will begin a best-of-seven series at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in an attempt to shed anguish and frustration, in Cleveland’s case, decades of it.

Orel Hershiser, who was given up last winter by the Dodgers but has once again typified his bulldog reputation in the playoffs, will be starting Game 1 for the Indians. Greg Maddux will start for Atlanta. When the Cy Young Awards are announced next month, he will be the only pitcher in history to have won four of them.

“If this doesn’t make people forget baseball’s problems, nothing will,” said John Schuerholz, Atlanta vice president and general manager.

The Indians, the punch line for many a baseball joke, had not finished within 10 games of first place in a non-strike season since 1959. Now, they’ll be trying for their first World Series championship since 1948, when they beat the Boston Braves.

The Atlanta Braves, who have won more games than any other team in the last five years, will be trying to win the first major championship in Atlanta’s history. The last time the Braves won the World Series was in 1957, when they were playing in Milwaukee.

“After what baseball went through last year, this is the perfect remedy for baseball,” Schuerholz said. “You have two organizations who have pulled themselves up from the depths of baseball existence, and now they’re sitting on top of the baseball world.”

It seemed unimaginable in the ‘80s that these teams would ever meet in the World Series. They were the laughingstocks of baseball. Players dreaded going to Atlanta. And they vowed to retire if they were traded to Cleveland.

Only five years ago, the Braves still were considered the most dismal franchise in the National League. They had failed to finish higher than fifth from 1985 to 1990, and had lost 90 or more games in four of those seasons--106 of them in 1988. They went three consecutive seasons without drawing a million fans.

Yet, as miserable a time as the Braves endured, they needed to look no further than Cleveland for solace. The Braves might have been bad, but at least they didn’t have players openly weeping when they were traded to their team.

“Oh man, if you got traded to Cleveland, you felt like killing yourself,” Atlanta outfielder Luis Polonia said. “Everybody hated Cleveland. It was a terrible city. A lousy stadium. And no people. There was nothing good about Cleveland.”

Said Atlanta first baseman Fred McGriff, “Everybody was always trying to get a no-trade clause in their contract just to keep from going to Cleveland. I mean, you didn’t even like going to the city. You couldn’t even find a restaurant.”

Times have changed.

“People are going crazy,” Cleveland center fielder Kenny Lofton said. “When we came back [from the league championship series in Seattle], people were lined up, screaming, beating on the bus, jumping in front of the bus, and the bus would have to stop. It was pretty exciting.”

Cleveland has a baseball team that is drastically different from any the city has had in the last 41 years. The Indians won 100 games in a 144-game season. They won their division title by a record 30 games. They became the first team in 24 years to lead the league in pitching and hitting. They had six regulars batting at least .300 for the first time since 1920. They became the first team in 30 years with the league leaders in hits, doubles, triples and home runs. And they had the first player in history--Albert Belle--who hit 50 homers with at least 50 doubles, 52 actually, in the same season.

“This isn’t a good baseball story, it’s the baseball story,” Cleveland General Manager John Hart said. “This was a dead-end city with a dead-end franchise and now we’ve exploded on the map.

“This team, winning 100 of 144 games, will be remembered for a long time. But to be known as a great team, you have to win the World Series.”

If the Indians have become the glamour story in baseball, featuring perhaps the most lethal offense since the ’61 Yankees, the Braves are trying to shed their playoff bridesmaid image with the finest pitching staff in baseball.

They were defeated in the Series by the Minnesota Twins in seven games in 1991, defeated again by the Blue Jays in six games in 1992, and were knocked off in the National League playoffs by the Phillies in 1993.

They are convinced that this year will be different. This is the first World Series in which they will have McGriff, Maddux, center fielder Marquis Grissom and rookie third baseman Chipper Jones.

Said pitcher Tom Glavine, “All year long, everything that has been associated with this team is, ‘If we don’t win the World Series, we’ve had a bad year.’

“This isn’t going to be any different. I’m sure we’re going to answer questions all week about being the Buffalo Bills of baseball. We plan to end that.”

If nothing else, for the first time in two years, baseball will at least have a champion.

“Last year, we had our hearts ripped out because we thought we were going to our first postseason,” Hart said. “When the World Series was pulled, it was a big blow. I remember taking some long walks and saying, ‘Geez, how can that happen?’

“Now’s our chance. Now’s baseball’s chance. You’ve got the best team in the American League going against the best team in the National League.

“This is the way it was meant to be.”