Well, part of the reason it's so bad for Higbee, is that people keep linking this bleacher report article that uses second hand accounts and minimal details about the actual incident, and broken hyperlinks to its sources. Of course bad journalism would put the incident in a bad light.
Obviously, the lawyer's words about what Higbee did or did not say that night can be taken with a grain of salt. At the very least though, it seems like the guy that got beat up was being a drunk asshole and that Higbee tried to get away from the situation before he escalated things and punched him out.
It seems like that whatever happened that night, the guy he hospitalized is satisfied with the compensation he received, and it seems to be an isolated incident in Higbee's case.