Bring your playbook, see you in the funnies

On this day in 1975: Brian Dowling, the former Yale star who inspired the “hit” B.D. character in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury,” started at quarterback in the Charlotte Hornets’ World Football League opener.

The Hornets, formerly the struggling New York Stars, fled to Charlotte in the middle of the 1974 season and lasted until the league folded in the middle of the 1975 season. Dowling, who had been cut by three NFL teams, fared little better in the WFL, throwing for one touchdown in both ’74 (with five interceptions) and ’75 (with six interceptions).