Alex Rodriguez Has Thoughts on the Sports Gambling Scandals: ‘We’ll Get It Right’ (Exclusive)

Baseball legend Alex Rodriguez, 50, famously weathered his own sports scandal back in the aughts, when he was twice linked to using performance enhancing drugs while playing professional ball.

But when it comes to the recent sports gambling scandals? He says it’s a story as old as sports themselves — but he believes it won’t continue to be a big problem, thanks to technology.

“I think baseball was created around 1876 or something. You may want to fact check on that, but it is right around there,” Rodriguez tells PEOPLE (according to the Baseball Hall of Fame, it was 1839). “And the first gambling scandal was a year later, in 1877. So sports betting has been around a minute.”

Rodriguez continues, “But like anything in sports or even anything throughout the evolution of this country, there’s always hiccups, there’s always challenges. Here’s what I will say — through technology and AI, something that you could have investigated over five years or decade, now we can figure and track in a matter of hours. And that’s the good news. And we have incredible leadership in sports. We have incredible leadership in baseball, football and the NBA, and I’m sure we’ll get it right.”

In his new three-part HBO docuseries Alex vs ARod, the former Yankee gets candid about his own past mistakes, including his steroid use, and tells PEOPLE that they mostly stemmed from self-induced pressure to be the best, and earn his high salary.

“If wasn’t so tough on myself and I didn’t love the game as much as I did, I probably wouldn’t have made the mistakes that I made,” he says. “I mean, there might be something like too much passion and obsession. I was definitely treading that line, if not completely past that line. And I think that craziness led me to doing the wrong thing sometimes.”

On Nov. 9, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz also got busted doing the wrong thing — the duo now face fraud and bribery charges after federal prosecutors allege they rigged pitches that allowed gamblers to win hundreds of thousands of dollars.

ESPN reported that Ortiz was arrested on Sunday in Boston, and Chase on Thursday at JFK Airport in New York City, and prosecutors allege that Chase worked with a gambler as early as May 2023 to throw specific pitches so that they could place prop bets — a wager on a specific occurrence during a game — and profit.

The pitching fraud scandal comes two weeks after 31 people — including an NBA coach and current player — were arrested for their connection with a mafia-led gambling scheme.

On Oct. 23, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player Damon Jones were among 31 people arrested on suspicion of their involvement in a massive sports gambling operation with connections to the mafia, authorities said, which includes an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams.

Rodriguez, now a popular baseball announcer, philanthropist and mogul, can look back on his own troubles with a sense of clarity.

“Everything’s really changed in my life for the better,” he says. “The goal with this series is to help young people, young athletes, learn from my past and past mistakes in a way,” he says. “Do I have regrets? All I know is I’ve never felt happier, and I don’t think that would be the case today without the mistakes.”