There was a time when takeout slides were acceptable, even in celebrity slow-pitch softball games.

Retired Star-Bulletin sports writer Dick Couch remembers the Columbia Inn Roundtablers — comprised of actors, singers, broadcasters and newspaper guys — taking on a squad of behemoths around 1980. Some probably even worked at the hotel named on their jerseys.

One of the Roundtablers was a little second baseman who didn’t look like much of a ballplayer at first glance. But Jimmy Borges was a slick fielder and a speedster who slashed line drives to all fields.

At age 45.

“He was still good,” Couch said.

Jimmy could still turn two and get away clean. But even the smoothest second basemen in the most innocent games could find themselves in harm’s way back in those days.

“He got taken out at second base by one of their big guys,” Couch said. “It almost broke his leg. It was a rough thing. But it didn’t change him. He didn’t get angry or anything.”

You couldn’t blame him if he did, since Borges made his living with his legs — not as much as with his voice or his smile, of course — but they were important, too. He was a showman.

The legs. That was often the hard part for Borges toward the end of his wondrous singing career that concluded just a few months before his passing Monday. He kept busy even as the cancer in his lungs made performing more of a challenge. But it was pain in his legs that slowed him down on stage before his voice went.

Today everyone is talking about what a nice guy Jimmy Borges was. And it’s all true. He remembered everybody’s name. Maybe his method was putting them all to songs. Someone told me about Jimmy asking a waitress her name. When she answered “Maria,” Jimmy belted out, “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria.”

In recent years when he spoke to groups of challenged kids — kids who had no idea who he was — he’d sing to them before he talked to them. They’d bust out laughing. He’d stop smiling momentarily and say, “What’s so funny? I’ve made a living doing that for 60 years.”

A guy they thought was a goofy old man suddenly had cred. He had their attention, and they’d get his message about pursuing your dream, whatever the odds.

Yes, he was blessed with raw talent — in sports and music, and in being a social genius; he knew innately what to say, what to do to make anyone feel special. And it was sincere.

“Every time I got a chance to talk to him I always came out the better for it,” Couch said. “He was a nice person, to everybody. It didn’t matter who you were.”

But make no mistake. He was tough, too. Kalihi tough.

His family moved to the continent when he was a kid, and he became one of the best high school running backs in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was fast, but at his size he had to be rugged, too.

Saint Mary’s star Herman Wedemeyer was his idol. How fitting was that? Both attended Saint Louis, both were on “Hawaii Five-O” later.

I spent quite a bit of time with Jimmy in his last year, and never saw him angry or resentful. His generosity and good cheer stayed with him all the way.

So did the toughness, as he gave us all a simple but profound lesson not just on how to live, but how to leave. Do what you love, as long as you can. Share your aloha, to the end.

Was there sentimentality involved in Jimmy Borges winning all those awards the other night? Of course there was … heck, one was a vote for most popular performer of the year. That’s all about sentiment.

But it’s all deserved.

And what Jimmy did with that CD, recording it despite the emotional and physical pain he was suffering? That was all about passion for his craft, love for his fans and strength to the end.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.