Month: October 2025

By Chris Tanaka

Click here for updates on this story

    BOSTON (WBZ) — A retired attorney has found a new passion forging superheated iron as a blacksmith in Boston.

Andy Good is one of the many artists working at the Humphreys Street Studios in Dorchester.

“There are two stone carvers, there are lots of painters and then there’s a whole lot of people who, in one way or another, are making clothing,” Good said.

He’s been pounding out masterful creations for 15 years after falling into it by accident.

“The truth is my wife, when I was lawyering, said, ‘All you do is work and work out. You’re a bore, find something else to do,” he said.

Good attended an adult education class in Framingham and fell in love with the craft.

“The idea of hitting something hard with a hammer when you’re defending criminal cases, that’s therapeutic,” the 79-year-old retired attorney told WBZ-TV.

He’s made all sorts of steel sculptures, from tools to intricate flower petals.

While the steelwork is born of fire, the passion was born of curiosity and having the studio space to make it flourish.

“The whole point is to do the mental and physical challenges that are completely and utterly different,” he said.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

WBZ

By Logan Hall

Click here for updates on this story

    PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (WBZ) — Some very rare baseball cards are now up for auction after they were found in an unlikely place.

For antique collector Tom Conrad, a good find usually means an old advertising sign, oil can or soda bottles. But when he stumbled upon a box of baseball cards from the early 1900’s on Facebook Marketplace, he knew he’d found something special.

“I hate to say once in a lifetime find, but it really is right up there,” Conrad said.

Conrad bought the collection for just $75 from someone who had originally picked it up at an estate sale in Providence, Rhode Island. Inside a wooden chest, he discovered 122 baseball cards dating from 1909 to 1911 featuring legends such as Cy Young, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw.

The cards were glued to the inside of the chest, a preservation choice that may have helped keep them intact for more than a century. Many of the cards remain stuck to the chest but are removable.

Conrad has since listed the collection on his antique Facebook page, where the top bid has climbed to $6,700.

Among the highlights is a 1909 Cy Young card, which experts say could be worth thousands.

“In poor condition it’s still a couple grand,” said Matt Sharps, a trading card specialist at Card Vault, a card shop co-owned by Tom Brady. “I saw a couple years ago there was a sale and a graded 8, which is near mint, sold for over $100,000.”

Sharps said the discovery is the kind collectors dream about.

“These cards used to come in boxes of cigarettes back in the day, you get a little card with your pack of cigarettes,” Sharps said. “A lot of them got destroyed, and people thought they were going to be worthless, so finding them still intact all this time later is unreal.”

For Conrad, the cards represent more than money. They’re art.

“It’s a true piece of history for baseball itself, but for Americana in general,” he said. “Just thinking that someone thought to put these in the trunk lid to conserve them like that.”

For more information, head to Conrad’s Facebook page, Smalls to the Walls Auctions.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Logan Hall

Click here for updates on this story

    PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (WBZ) — Some very rare baseball cards are now up for auction after they were found in an unlikely place.

For antique collector Tom Conrad, a good find usually means an old advertising sign, oil can or soda bottles. But when he stumbled upon a box of baseball cards from the early 1900’s on Facebook Marketplace, he knew he’d found something special.

“I hate to say once in a lifetime find, but it really is right up there,” Conrad said.

Conrad bought the collection for just $75 from someone who had originally picked it up at an estate sale in Providence, Rhode Island. Inside a wooden chest, he discovered 122 baseball cards dating from 1909 to 1911 featuring legends such as Cy Young, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw.

The cards were glued to the inside of the chest, a preservation choice that may have helped keep them intact for more than a century. Many of the cards remain stuck to the chest but are removable.

Conrad has since listed the collection on his antique Facebook page, where the top bid has climbed to $6,700.

Among the highlights is a 1909 Cy Young card, which experts say could be worth thousands.

“In poor condition it’s still a couple grand,” said Matt Sharps, a trading card specialist at Card Vault, a card shop co-owned by Tom Brady. “I saw a couple years ago there was a sale and a graded 8, which is near mint, sold for over $100,000.”

Sharps said the discovery is the kind collectors dream about.

“These cards used to come in boxes of cigarettes back in the day, you get a little card with your pack of cigarettes,” Sharps said. “A lot of them got destroyed, and people thought they were going to be worthless, so finding them still intact all this time later is unreal.”

For Conrad, the cards represent more than money. They’re art.

“It’s a true piece of history for baseball itself, but for Americana in general,” he said. “Just thinking that someone thought to put these in the trunk lid to conserve them like that.”

For more information, head to Conrad’s Facebook page, Smalls to the Walls Auctions.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Mike Hellgren

Click here for updates on this story

    HAGERSTOWN, Maryland (WJZ) — Melissa Tran is back in Maryland after federal immigration authorities detained her more than five months ago over a non-violent conviction two decades earlier.

The mother of five, and Hagerstown business owner, spoke with WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren as her future remains uncertain.

Tran’s ordeal started with her annual check-in with immigration in downtown Baltimore—a routine she has done for more than 20 years.

“Just a normal check-in,” Tran said. “You go and you show them your identification, and then, they give you your next appointment date.”

This time, ICE detained her without explanation. Tran spent five days in Baltimore.

She described being housed with nine women in filthy conditions.

“No shower, nothing. No personal hygiene. No toothbrush to brush your teeth,” Tran said.

The women were kept in one room with an inflatable mattress and no blankets.

“I was in shock,” Tran said.

Tran was then taken to Louisiana, Arizona, and ended up in Tacoma, Washington.

She said she was always shackled on various buses and planes but relied on the many letters of support she received from friends in Maryland to keep her spirits up.

“When you’re sitting there, and you don’t know what’s happening to you, and you think all these negative thoughts, it’s the letters that I received from the people in the community saying you have to stay strong, we are fighting for you, we are praying for you,” Tran said. “It gives me hope.”

Tran, 43, came to America from Vietnam legally as a refugee in the 1990s, her lawyer said.

As a teenager, she admitted to stealing some checks from her employer.

She pleaded guilty, and a judge entered an order of removal in 2003, but because Vietnam would not accept her, she was allowed to stay as long as she checked in regularly with immigration.

“I know what I did was wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” Tran said. “For my kids to have to go through it is horrible for me to comprehend. Why? We always say if you change, you deserve a second chance.”

It is uncertain now if she will get that second chance.

A federal judge found there was no need to continue her detention for now.

Tran said she was elated when she received the news that a federal judge ordered her release from detainment at a federal facility in Washington state.

She was overjoyed to finally hold her children again when she returned to Hagerstown, Maryland, on Monday.

“Just a moment to feel them and touch them,” Tran told Hellgren. “I’m finally home.”

She spent more than 150 days in ICE custody, with her four children constantly on her mind.

“I’ve never been away from them this long, so I thought about them every single moment,” Tran said. “I said, ‘What’s going to happen when I’m not home?’ I have an autistic son, so I did a lot with him, but now he’s without me. I just kind of said, ‘How are they going to survive without me?'” Tran said through tears.

A federal judge in Washington state found the government was unnecessarily detaining her, but Tran still faces deportation, possibly to a third country.

“I hope the judge will allow us to reopen my immigration case, and then we have a good outcome, and I can stay,” Tran said.

Tran has to report to immigration again in Baltimore next week.

One of her lawyers, Bernard Semler, is also a family friend.

“It’s unfortunate the immigration system has moved into one-size-fits-all, and it doesn’t take into consideration an individual’s work to get a second chance,” Semler said. “We’re hoping either through the judicial system or even politically, we’re hoping someone in the Trump administration might see this and say, ‘Hey, we need to look at these on a case-by-case basis.'”

Semler noted his client’s past theft conviction has been reclassified and is no longer considered an aggravated felony, and said she has been building a stable life and family for decades without trouble.

“She has been here legally, checking in, doing everything she is supposed to,” Semler said. “She didn’t enter the country illegally. She’s been here the entire time.”

Semler hopes to avoid a deportation at all, but especially one to a third country.

“The government had agreed not to remove Melissa during the pendency of the case, but now the case is wrapping up,” Semler said. “We’re trying to get an agreement that they would not consider third-party removal for her.”

In a published statement, a Department of Homeland Security official referenced Tran’s past conviction and said the government was still pushing to remove her to Vietnam because of it.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.