Follow Your Sports Team Tips
KAGAN: Let's check out the financial markets. They have been open about 51 minutes. Not looking so hot on this Friday morning. The Dow, as you can see, still above 11,000 but down 28 points. The Nasdaq is in negative territory as well. It is down 13. Pretty soon spring will be in the air and with it the approach of Major League Baseball and college basketball's March Madness. But how can you stay a loyal fan and juggle the other demands of your busy life. Here with her "Top Five Tips," our Personal Finance Editor Gerri Willis. Gerri, good morning. Happy baseball.</s>WILLIS: Good morning. Thank you. Daryn, good to see you. You know, if you're a baseball fan, you know it's time for spring training. It really gets underway now. And if you want to save money seeing your team in action, now is the time to go. Look, regular season average price of tickets for a family of four $165. They're going up 6 percent this year. But if you want to see them on the cheap. You want to head to Florida or Arizona where tickets are just $5 to $25 a pop. Now, obviously, you'll have to travel to get there but you can really see a ton of games and do it within a week's time.</s>KAGAN: It's a lot of fun to be at spring training. The cactus league and the grapefruit league. What if you want to go during the regular season to some of your favorite teams and they're among the most popular?</s>WILLIS: Well, what you want to do, if you're buying tickets, particularly though for spring training, you want to go to mlb.com, because there you're going to find the schedules, you're going to find the tickets, you're going to get seating assignments. It's a great place to go. It will hook you up with where you want to buy those seats and that way you're not talking to scalpers or something like that.</s>KAGAN: Yes, not a good idea. What if you don't just want to watch, you want to be part of the experience.</s>WILLIS: Well, if you want to be part of the experience, you've got to go to Fantasy Camp. That's what I was talking about before. You get to go and play with players, which is so cool. You'll pay for the privilege. $4,500 for a week, Daryn. So it's a ton of dough. But if you're just sick with your love for your team, this is something to do, particularly if it's say the Cubs or the Orioles or the Dodgers or even the Yankees. Those are all teams with fantasy baseball camps.</s>KAGAN: A lot of fun. What about these sports travel packages? Are those good deals?</s>WILLIS: Not so much, really. You pay as much as 10 percent to 35 percent more than if you book it yourself. And you might as well book it yourself because, look, at the end of the day you're really there for the game, not for some fancy shmancy accommodations. So do it on your own. It is much cheaper.</s>KAGAN: And what if you're a little bit different. You're not into (ph) the team but those mascots.</s>WILLIS: Well, look at it this way, Daryn, let's say you want to see every game and you don't want to have to pay for it. In fact, you'd like to be paid for going. You can train to be a mascot. I think this is a great idea. At a minimum you're going to make about $20,000 a year and more as you get better and better. You've got to have a little training. Let me give you a website to go to if you have some interest in this. It is called raymondeg.com. It's a great place to go if you want to find out about being a mascot. I don't know, do you want to wear one of those suits through the game?</s>KAGAN: I don't think I'd fit in one of those suits. I think I'm too tall. I don't think that would work. But it sounds fun. Hey, who's your team? Who's your baseball team?</s>WILLIS: Well, anybody playing the Yankees, really.</s>KAGAN: Oh, anti-Yankee. OK.</s>WILLIS: Oh, now I'm going to get some e-mail.</s>KAGAN: Yes, a couple.</s>WILLIS: How about you, Daryn?</s>KAGAN: Oh, Atlanta Braves here in Atlanta and for now they are our co-workers. The team's for sale. But, for now, you know, owned by the same company.</s>WILLIS: There you go. There you go.</s>KAGAN: All right. Thank you, Gerri. Have a great weekend.</s>WILLIS: You too.</s>KAGAN: We have more news ahead. Recovering from Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans gets many of the headlines, but the Mississippi Gulf Coast is equally, if not even more, devastated. Ahead, CNN's Kathleen Koch returns to her hometown of Bay St. Louis almost six months after the storm and the situation is still pretty bad. Also, pulling over vehicles is anything but routine for officers. Dashboard cameras capture the danger on the road.