I'm going to make a couple of judgment calls
that may or may not be valid, but they are based on what you have told us in your post. Most of this response is opinion, not a by-the-rules response.
1) The two umpires calling this game (especially the plate umpire) are "my way or the highway" types who believe they are the masters of the game and above the rules.
2) The umpires, rather than trying to calm the situation down, reacted with defensiveness and ego, knew the ruling was wrong, and ejected the coach as a way to put an end to the discussion.
Your first issue (IMO), as league president, is with the umpires who called this game. They were using made-up rules and allowed that to end up in two ejections. These ejections would never have happened if the umpires had not used made-up rules. This has nothing to do with protest processes, but the umpires do need to be disciplined in some appripriate manner. If they are going to call your games, they need to call them according to your league's rules (presumably, ASA + written changes), and not according to the rules they personally use.
If there was, indeed, no collision at the plate, then the umpire has absolutely no leg to stand on whatsoever. He can't even claim flagrant unsportsmanlike behavior.
On the issue of calling "them" jerks... Being in the dugout with backs turned supposedly talking to the other coach does not isolate a coach from ejection for making disparaging remarks to or about game officials. Was the coach speaking in a normal conversational tone to a person standing next to him, or was his voice raised in anger so everyone could hear? If the latter, then the ejection was warranted. If the former, then the umpire (in addition to making up rules) has rabbit ears and was overreacting with the ejection.
As to the protest process - your league needs to follow its own bylaws on this.
If you are speaking strictly ASA rules on protests, the protest would have to be made at the time (before the next pitch). You may choose to honor the argument from the other team that the dual ejection left them with no one who
could protest, and that clearly the coaches were not done with their discussion of the ruling when ejected, so you can choose to treat it
as if the protest had been filed. After all, it is your league. You'd need the entire league board (I'd guess) to back you on this.
JMO, but it would go a long way to showing that your league does conduct its games / tournaments with integrity, and thay you want out-of-town teams to know they will be treated fairly.
As I said, JMO.
By the strict letter of the rules, the team manager (or acting team manager) needed to inform the plate umpire before the next pitch that the game was being played under protest.
[Edited by Dakota on Jul 11th, 2003 at 10:29 AM]