Corleone family saga continues

A new name has entered the house of the Corleones: Mark Winegardner, a fiction writer whose previous subjects include baseball, Cleveland and organized crime, has won a contest to continue the saga of Mario Puzo’s fictional crime family.

The decision, made by Random House and the Puzo literary estate, was announced Friday morning on NBC’s “Today” show.

“The Godfather Returns” is tentatively scheduled to come out in the fall of 2004.

“There are many stories left to tell,” said Winegardner, 41, director of the creative writing program at Florida State University. His books include the baseball novel “Prophet of the Sandlots” and “Crooked River Burning,” a class-conscious story set in Cleveland.