Hitters have been injured by getting intentionally hit by balls. Broken bones, impaired vision, etc. Careers have been ended from it to. At least one guy even died from taking a ball to the head. Sure you can say that the protection has gotten better but so has the velocity of the pitchers. You can't say that it assault when a pitcher is intentionally targeting a batter. It doesn't matter if he's trying to hit him somewhere 'safe' or not.