At Lutherville's Seminary Park, where youngsters play soccer and lacrosse and football, nearly half the field is worn down to bare earth. Parts of it seem as bumpy as a country road. Smudged chalk lines run through the dirt.
It is, some say, a great place to lay some carpet.
Following the lead of Howard County and other jurisdictions across the country, Baltimore County recreation officials will set the stage for amateur athletes to play on a surface fit for Ray Lewis. Seminary Park will be outfitted soon with artificial turf.
"How can you not be excited?" said Larry Shackelford, president of the Lutherville-Timonium Recreation Council, which uses Seminary Park. "The field just gets used and used, and we can't grow grass on it correctly. After years and years of doing that, it's just a rough place to play."
Artificial turf was once largely limited to NFL and college stadiums; more recently, it has come to some high school athletic fields in the Baltimore area. Now local governments are turning to fake grass for youth sports complexes.
They hope to save money on maintenance. And because the fields can be used hour after hour, day after day, they might help address a shortage of playing fields for suburban youngsters, recreation leaders say.
Howard County unveiled synthetic turf fields at Rockburn Branch Park last year and Western Regional Park this year. The county plans to install turf at two more parks.
Baltimore County has launched a pilot program, with plans to put turf on the football field at Catonsville High School and at Seminary Park. County parks officials say they will seek money for more artificial turf fields in next year's budget.
Baltimore County government has paid $1.1 million for a field at Catonsville High, which would be available to rec teams when completed in the spring.
The county is paying a similar amount for turf to be installed at one of three athletic fields at Seminary Park. Construction on that field is expected to be complete next summer.
The Synthetic Turf Council, an industry group, estimates there are 1,000 artificial turf fields across the country - twice as many as there were three years ago. One out of every 10 new fields is built in a public recreational complex, the council estimates.
What's driving the trend, local government officials say, is the need for playing fields in suburban counties. There are too many rec teams to accommodate, but buying more land for parks would be costly.
