Baseball commissioner Bud Selig can envision Montreal making a bid to return to the major leagues…

“I think they would be an excellent candidate in the future. No question about it. That was very impressive,” Selig said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“They have much work to be done,” he said. “There’s certainly in my case no hard or angry feeling toward Montreal. We tried to keep a team there. It’s a long story now. But I thought that was marvelous.”

The Athletics and Oakland appeared headed for a last-minute deal Thursday morning after the A’s owner informed city and county leaders that he had received permission from baseball commissioner Bud Selig to immediately move the team outside Oakland unless a deal was approved.

The stunning revelation was made by Athletics co-owner Lew Wolff in a 10 p.m. e-mail to officials, in which he wrote: “I was informed tonight that Commissioner Selig, due to the possibility of not having the hearing and vote that we were purported to receive from the JPA, that we will immediately be allowed to seek a temporary or permanent location outside the city of Oakland.”

The e-mail prompted city and county officials to immediately restart negotiations to keep the A’s in Oakland, and a new deal was being discussed Thursday morning by the 8-member board of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority.

Oakland city councilman Noel Gallo, who was initially opposed to the proposed 10-year lease proposal, said city, county and baseball leaders were on the phone hammering out a deal overnight.

“I think this agreement will be fair,” he said. “It might not be perfect, but I think it’ll be good for Oakland and the region in the long run.”