John Henry Moss, who as far as anyone knows ran a professional baseball league longer than anyone else, spending half a century in the low minor leagues as president of what is now the South Atlantic League, died in Kings Mountain, N.C., on July 1. He was 90. His death was announced by the league, whose president, Eric Krupa, succeeded Moss last season. No cause of death was given; Moss had a stroke June 7. A stern figure known for his formality and rectitude, Moss was a businessman at least as much as he was a baseball man. Kings Mountain was his headquarters and his hometown -- he served as the mayor from 1965 to 1988 and was often called Boss Moss -- and he saw minor league baseball as a way to bolster communities, generating local pride as well as local revenue. A detail-oriented, forward-looking executive even to the end of his extraordinary tenure, he emphasized the fan experience long before that became a watchword of minor league baseball operations, and he was an early advocate of Internet marketing. 'He didn't mind being called a capitalist,' said Pat O'Conner, the president of Minor League Baseball, who said he knew of no longer-sitting league president. He said he first met Moss in 1982, when O'Conner joined the South Atlantic League as the 23-year-old rookie general manager of the Greenwood Pirates and became one of Moss' many proteges. 'John was big on the little things,' O'Conner said. 'He'd come to your ballpark, and he'd want to talk about your tickets. What do they look like? Who's selling them? What do you do with your stubs? Now I'm 30 years into it -- I understand why that stuff matters. He had a unique way of looking at things, and he taught a lot of us to do things right.' Born on Nov. 10, 1918, Moss played minor league baseball himself in 1940. Then he joined the Army and served in World War II. Upon his return, he founded the Western Carolina League, a semipro circuit, in 1947. For the 1948 season, having established franchises in North Carolina cities like Shelby, Hendersonville and Lenoir, he won membership for the league in the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (now known as Minor League Baseball). The Western Carolina League was classified as a Class D league, the lowest rung on the professional ladder. Moss left the league in 1950 and for nine years worked as a general manager for several minor league teams affiliated with the Detroit Tigers. The Western Carolina League had been folded into another league in the interim, and when Moss returned in 1959, he reorganized it as the Western Carolinas League; it shortly rejoined the National Association. In 1980, it was renamed the South Atlantic League (often referred to as the Sally League), and is now classified as a Class A (or single A) league, still in the lower echelons of the minors. Under Moss' leadership, the league expanded in membership and geographical reach, fielding teams at different times in 43 cities. It now has 16 teams in eight states, among them are the colorfully named Kannapolis Intimidators and the Hickory Crawdads in North Carolina, the Delmarva Shorebirds in Maryland and the Savannah Sand Gnats in Georgia. Half the teams play in stadiums built in this century. For 45 years, Moss' wife, Elaine, worked with her husband in the league office as the director of administration and finance. She died in 2004. They had no children. Among team owners and executives, Moss was known for holding long meetings using Robert's Rules of Order, appearing before them in a well-tailored suit and a necktie even in the warmest weather. He typically brought along a huge notebook that held a detailed agenda, from which he rarely averted his eyes. 'But he didn't miss anything,' said Todd Parnell, a former league official who is now the president of two teams in other leagues. Parnell recalled a long meeting in which another official stood up, went to his car and returned with a cooler of beer. 'He's up there talking, looking down at his notebook. And we're passing the beers around,' Parnell said. 'And he doesn't even look up, but he says: 'And gentlemen of the league? The chair will entertain one of those ice-cold beers.'' 